Something to Fight For
by GroovyKat
Summary: In the midst of the Time War, the Eighth Doctor runs. He's lost everything; his family, his home, his friends and his will to carry on. Landing in a quaint little parkette on a parallel Earth, he finds what he needs to return and do what has to be done to save the universe once again.
1. Escaping Gallifrey

A/N: This is just a short little bit of something that was bugging me to get written: Eight taking a break from the war and looking for something ... anything ... to give him the strength to keep fighting. He finds what he needs in a quint little park on a parallel world...

I absolutely love the idea of Eight and Rose together ... there just aren't enough fics out there with the two of them in it. (Hint hint and nudge nudge to all the fanfic writers out there. We need more Eight/Rose stuff!)

Oh, this is a baby!Fic .. just in case you don't get into that kind've thing...

Yeah and to add the typical Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the recognsable characters. I'm just borrowing them for a bit to tell my own tale...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Hot yellow sparks and superheated melting plastic rained from the ceiling above his head, but it didn't stop the Doctor from fighting against the protests of his ship. The central column whined and screamed her objections to his flight commands, but it wasn't enough to convince her pilot that what he was doing was _wrong_. She was willing to destroy her entire console room to make him see reason, but there was no way that he was going to listen. She glowed with pulsing mauve lighting and splashed swirling circular words of warning across her monitors begging him to please stop…

"I know it hurts, my faithful friend," he empathized as gently as he could through gritted teeth of exertion. "But please stop fighting this. I promise you that I will make it up to you."

To suggest that it hurt was an incredible understatement. He was piloting her though a near impermeable telepathic wall. It was bad enough that the Doctor was insisting that they break through the tentatively holding Quantam Force Field that surrounded Gallifrey, but now he had her fighting through the Transduction Barrier as well. Traffic Control were under instruction to disallow any unauthorized capsule flight requests – no exceptions – and were therefore strengthening the shields.

Gallifrey was at war. The War Council had recalled every Capsule across all of time and space. It wouldn't matter where in the universe her pilot tried to take her, the Absolute Tesseractulator would tell Traffic Control where they were and they would use that information to override her systems to recall them.

If he was going to insist that they run like cowards, then she'd make sure they ended up where the long arms of Gallifrey couldn't reach them.

Her entire structure shuddered, but the raining sparks and screaming stopped. In its place was a long and loud whine from the central column as the console room shuddered, and then pitched and bucked violently to one side. She was unapologetic as the Doctor was thrown to the floor in an undistinguished moaning pile of silk and thick velvet, but let out a trembling sigh as the pitching and bucking finally stopped.

The Doctor lifted his head tiredly to look at the now silent central column of his beloved ship with an expression of concern. The lack of movement in the split razor components within the shaft told him that they'd landed.

"I didn't give you any materialization coordinates," he said cautiously as he tenderly drew himself to a stand and walked in toward the main console. "Wherever you've landed us, it isn't where I wanted to go."

" _No, my Thief_ ," she whispered telepathically into his mind. " _But this is where you_ need _to be_."


	2. Telepathic contact

A/N: Just in case you're wondering ... This fic is set in Donna's timeline ... there is no Tentoo. So don't be expecting him to show up in this parallel world. :)

~~oooOOOooo~~

He stumbled out of the TARDIS with little to none of the usual graceful airs that were typical inside this incarnation. His stumble became a stagger as he twisted in his walk to look back at his angry blue box as she slammed her doors closed with an echoing bang of petrified wood against petrified wood.

He shook his head with disbelief at the sharp manner by which the TARDIS had kicked him out of her console room. Filling it with acrid smoke and then blaring her cloisters had been bad enough, but did she have to have to drop one of her beams close enough to him that it swiped him across his backside, too?

His head was still shaking as he finally turned around to gaze across the landscape that spanned out lazily ahead of them. Although it really made no difference to him right at this moment, he did have to figure out just where they had escaped to. It would be incredibly foolish of him not to take stock of where they were and determine whether or not they would be at any risk, but he was somewhat loathe to care about it. There was nothing in the entire universe that would present more danger to him than the horrors that he had just fled from.

Quite frankly, finding himself in mortal peril right now perhaps wouldn't be so unwelcome. Perhaps he could meet a rather swift end and the nightmare of his planet at war could end once and for all. He had no will left inside him now to continue to fight. Everything he ever held dear was gone; lost in the battles across Kasterborous as the Daleks waged their rampage the Lords of Time.

His Family was gone. His home destroyed. His closest friends were either deceased or driven mad by the toils of the war. What did he have left to fight for when everything he ever held within his hearts had already been taken from him?

A small bird fluttered noisily past his head and the Doctor spun with surprise. He watched the tiny flapping wings beat a hasty escape into a large tree and smiled as the small bird found perch atop one of the thinner branches.

"Cyanistes caeruleus," he recited with a smile upon noting the bright lemon underbelly plumage and the blue helmet and black mask across his eyes. "Otherwise known as a Blue Tit." His brows pinched centre and he nodded his head slowly as he let his eyes shift to the ground at his feet. "So I'm on Earth, then?"

Freshly cut green grasses and small purple flowers at the base of the tree confirmed that conclusion.

"Round-headed rampion," he breathed with a smile as he lifted his head and thrust one hand into his trouser pocket. "England. How lovely." He swallowed and toyed with the chain of a fob watch attached to his belt. He closed his eyes and listened to the soft sounds of life that surrounded him and found a smile.

"My home away from home," he breathed out longingly. He opened his mouth to finish the thought, but had the words lodged in his throat at a loud mechanical humming coming from above. He lifted his grey eyes to the skies and raked his hand through his flyaway chestnut curls to hold them free of his face as he looked for the source of the unusual sound.

He half gagged at what he saw: Zeppelins. Not just one, but an entire sky full of them flying overhead.

The sight had him staggering backward somewhat in shock. Earth was never known throughout any of its history to have a sky full of whirring zeppelins. One or two maybe as an exhibition item, but not so many that it could cause congestion in the skies above London.

"By the staff of Rassilon, what is happening here?"

What was happening, indeed? Had the repercussions of the battles of the Time War already made their impact across the universe? Had there been irreparable damage done to the timelines of the planets across all of space and time? Had his beloved planet Earth suffered from the spoils of war?

"No," he breathed out worriedly. "Please not Earth. Don't take this from me as well." He stamped his foot into the ground and lifted a fist toward the zeppelin filled sky above. "I won't let you. Do you hear me? Earth is protected, and I _will_ find a way to reverse any damage you've caused."

He turned sharply in a way that fanned out his velvet jacket around his hips and then fled toward the TARDIS. He roughly shoved his key into the lock and twisted the tumbler hard in an attempt to get inside the ship to begin researching ways to return Earth to the way it was supposed to be.

It wouldn't turn.

The TARDIS had kicked him out. She wasn't going to let him back in any time soon.

"No," he breathed out despondently. "No. Please don't shut me out like this." He braced a hand against the door and gently tried to turn the key again. His breath shuddered out of him when it still refused to turn at his command. Anger took hold of him and he drew back one elbow and slammed his palm forward against the door. "Don't you _dare_ shut me out and ignore me, TARDIS." He gave the door another firm hit and added a hard hit with his knee. His breath hissed out through his teeth both in anger and in pain at the strike in his knee. He leaned in close enough to the blue wooden door to squash his nose up against it.

"I'm not letting this war do any more damage than it already has," he snarled against the door, his voice hot and his lips wet with spittle. "I _won't_ let them take Earth away from me like it has everything else. Do you hear me? Do you?"

The TARDIS remained stoic and silent at his rant. There was no movement of her doors, no click in the lock, and no whine of her engines. There was barely even a hum in her standby systems. She remained resolutely silent.

Her silence became his, and slowly the Doctor calmed himself out of anger. His voice lowered to a saddened whisper

"I have to save them, old friend. Don't you see that?" He sniffed wetly and closed his watering eyes. "I've lost everything else. I've got no solace left in this universe except here." He stroked both palms along the wood as he lowered his forehead against it. "Don't you understand. If I lose Earth to this war as well, then I've lost it all." He exhaled a shuddered breath. "Gallifrey's not going to survive this war. I know that. There's no way that our forces can defeat an entire battle fleet of Daleks." He let out a strangled sob, which dragged the lips of his gaping mouth drag wetly against the doors. His hot and damp breath hissed a wet spot on the wood, a spot that grew and contracted in time with several inhales and exhales against it.

"I've got nothing left," he whined finally as his knees finally gave out and he fell slowly, yet hard onto the ground beside the tired old timeship. "Nothing at all."

He fell to his knees, and then to his hip, and finally the Doctor turned and shifted onto his backside. He pressed his back into the TARDIS doors and lifted his knees into his chest. With defeat, the Doctor lay one arm across his knees and clutched a fistful of his hair with the other. His breath rattled inside his chest and his shoulders heaved as he let himself wallow in the agony of his losses, and of the request made to him by his last remaining old friend.

Romana wanted him to wholly join the fight; to lead a platoon of weary soldiers in the battles against all that were attacking Gallifrey right now. Their battle forces had been swiftly depleted against the Daleks battle fleet. Romana and the council were scraping the very bottom of the barrel if they were asking _him_ to take part in it as a commanding officer.

He was an unwilling soldier at the very best of times. How could he possibly be expected to lead a team into battle when he had nothing left in the universe to battle for? She didn't understand his protests. She didn't _want_ to understand his protests. She couldn't comprehend why he didn't immediately take up arms and defend mother Gallifrey from the attacking armies.

And why should he? Gallifrey and her sons never stood up for him. At every avenue they'd abandoned and disowned him. Why should he be expected to turn his beloved time ship into a battle craft and lead what was left of the Gallifreyan armed forces toward their deaths?

What was the point?

"Tell me my old friend," he asked in a hoarse whisper. "What do I have left to even fight for?"

His ship remained silent against his back. The silence made him chuckle ruefully. "Perhaps we should fly in, you and me. Take a suicide mission from Romana's office and end this war…" He exhaled wetly. "And destroy the lineage of Lungbarrow in its entirety. I'm sure the council will embrace that idea, don't you?"

There was a tickle at the very edge of his consciousness that he took to be a gentle contact from his otherwise silent TARDIS. It made him crack the very smallest of smiles. "Is that something you agree with then? The Doctor and his TARDIS, flying one last and no doubt very explosive final adventure together."

The tentative tickle in his mind became a more urgent tapping; like tiny fingertips against glass; and he found himself trying to shake his head to relieve the annoyance.

"Is that you?" he queried his ship softly. "Are you finally deciding to talk to me now?" He snorted out a breath through his nose. "You know you don't have to knock. I'm always open to you."

He felt her hum inside his mind, but it was separate from the tapping that continued, and then increased with urgency in a rhythm that made his eyes widen with quiet hope.

He cautiously let down his mental shields to allow the presence into his mind, and found the sadness in his subconscious immediately engulfed in a warm familial wash. It was an infantile and clumsy contact that stumbled aimlessly into his consciousness and struggled to maintain the connection. There was urgency and desperation inside the contact and it made the Doctor rise quickly to his feet to seek out the owner of this familial telepathic signature.

The Doctor's mind spun wildly as he shot to a stand, and for the briefest of moments he stumbled backward against the doors of the TARDIS. He quickly regained his balance and schooled his expression into a façade of curious cautiousness as he strode forward slowly. The TARDIS' presence in his mind hummed excitedly, and he petted his hand in the air behind him in a request for her to just settle down and quiet a little.

"I'm looking into it," he assured her gently. "Just give me one moment, please."

The Doctor pressed forward, using the fluctuating strength of the contact in his mind as his compass. He could feel the presence grow inside his mind until the sunshine warmth of it engulfed him completely. It was a feeling of hope, of happiness and of unconditional love, and it drove him forward through the thicket and trees until he emerged into an open field.

He looked around him expectantly, desperately searching for the source of this contact, but found the park that had opened up before him empty. There were no children at play and no milling adults in conversation. All he could see was freshly cut lawn surrounding a quiet playground nestled inside a large sandy pit.

His hope and excitement fell at the silence ahead of him. Whatever the source of this brilliant light within him, he wasn't going to find it here. The realization made him slump. He dropped his head and let out a defeated breath of disappointment. Of course it wouldn't be so easy. Nothing ever was.

A shrill sound suddenly shattered the silence; a hollow and metallic double chime. He twisted his head to investigate, and gasped at the image that sat on a park bench a mere twenty feet away at the very edge of the park.

Angels were a myth that the Doctor never really bought into. There were far too many logical – and sometimes quite terrifying – answers to the questions of whether or not angels did truly exist. He wasn't a religious soul. He called out to the deity of the Time Lords only when he wished to exclaim and blaspheme against Rassilon's name. At the vision he saw ahead of him, however, the Doctor would quite easily have fallen to his knees and offered worship to whatever deity created this most magnificent of creatures.

It was for sure a trick of the light that made her look so ethereal to him. Her beautifully flowing blonde hair caught the rays of the sun shining overhead in such a manner that it haloed her head in magnificent yellow light that kissed against her cheeks and settled brightly down on her shoulders. She was seated in an elegant position, with her legs delicately crossed at the knee, over which sat the glossy pages of a magazine open to a page that was now forgotten about as she looked down at the face of an electronic device that he assumed with a cellphone.

Whatever the message on the phone, it was one that gave her amusement, as a brilliant white-tooth smile stretched across her cheeks. He was mesmerized by the image as she scrolled down the phone with her thumb and she brought a take-out coffee cup to her lips to draw back a short sip.

He knew immediately that this vision before him wasn't a Time Lord – or Lady – and could not be the source of the telepathic contact, but was no less captivated by her. His search for his telepathic partner could wait. He just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the beauty that existed before him. Too long had he seen only the terror and ugliness of war. He had forgotten that beauty existed, and wanted to commit each and every part of her to memory.

He took his eyes from her pursed lips and let them fall to study the rest of her. She was seated comfortably, he could see that. But he could also see an underlying guardedness to her. Her back was rigid and straight, and her legs taut and ready to run if needed, yet her posture had a feminine softness to it. Her rigid shoulders had a roundness to them that flawlessly curved down to meet with the gentle swell of her breast. A prominent and generous swell was perhaps a far more apt description for her bosom, which seemed to stand sentinel for the rounded swell beneath them. A swollen shape that quite obviously held within it new life. The obviousness of this was far more pronounced when she set the phone down on the bench beside her and she moved that hand to settle protectively at the very top of her womb.

A womb, he realized startlingly, that was projecting the telepathic signature he'd been seeking. It was the telltale familial contact of a growing Gallifreyan child reaching out for her father…

…and she was desperately reaching out for him.

The Doctor shook his head and took a startled step backward.

"Impossible," he breathed to himself as his eyes locked tight on the swell of child that was hidden underneath the floral patterns of a cotton sundress. His head shook with disbelief. "It's absolutely impossible." He inhaled. "Magnificent, of course, but so very impossible."

There was a sensation of a tug from the woman's womb that drew the Doctor out of the shadow of the trees and had him walking slowly toward her. His hands moved out ahead of him and opened in welcome as he drew closer to who he was quickly starting to believe was his unborn daughter.

Ancient and lyrical words of assurance fell from his lips as he moved closer and he spared no glace toward the startled woman as he fell to his knees at her feet and pressed his hands either side of her womb.

"My precious child," he sang in a whisper. "Don't fret or fear. Your father's here."


	3. Hot Tea

A/N: Thanks for the terrific response to this wee little ficlet of mine. There's only another two or three chapters to take us to the end, and I'll get back to my other works...

I apologise for nothing in this chapter.

I also want to make mention that I am aware that it seems as though Rose recovers fairly quickly from being accosted by a stranger, but she was a companion of the Doctor, so she's more apt to believe the unbelievable than most ...

I really hope that you enjoy this chapter ... I get through quite a bit in here.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The very last thing that the Doctor expected to happen when he reached out to his unborn daughter and welcomed her into his consciousness was to experience the rather unpleasant sensation of hot liquid being thrown in his face. As if that wasn't an unpleasant enough experience, he found himself also subjected to the high-pitched screech of an irate banshee…

…Was that what this magnificent creature was; a Banshee? Had an older incarnation of himself _really_ paired himself with a _Banshee_? More terrifyingly, had he actually _mated_ with one? For the love of Omega no. Of course he hadn't. Banshees were rather unpleasant and tasteless creatures even when in the form of ethereal beauty. There is no way in Arcadia that he would have given himself and his child over to such a creature.

If she wasn't a Banshee, then what was she? Certainly not Human. Surely, no human could emit such a horrific sound.

His face wore a grimace as he lifted his chin to beg of her to please quiet down, but he didn't get the words of request out fast enough to avoid the bump of a swollen belly against his nose as the woman tried to find her way to her feet. He fell back onto his backside on the grass behind him and fought to save at least a small bit of dignity by not falling completely on his back.

The woman, for her part, fell as gracelessly as he did. She stumbled back onto the bench with a loud "oomph" and the cluttering of her magazine and cellphone onto the small bricked area that held the ben securely in place.

When the Doctor attempted to draw himself back up to his knees, he was thrown back into place by another shriek that may or may not have contained a threat on his life. All he could do was hold up a hand to her in the universal signal to "stop" and growl out a short request for quiet.

"Madam," he growled out. "If you wouldn't mind. I've experienced quite enough loud racket lately and therefore implore you to please stop your catawauling before I start to bleed from my ears."

She gasped in disgust. "Oh, you'll be bleedin' from more than your ears if you don't back off right now." She swiped at the bench beside her in an unsuccessful search of her phone. "I mean it, mate. My friends. They can be pretty mean, you know." She panted a couple of times in frustration at not being able to locate her phone. "God. Where is it?"

The Doctor kept an eye on her reddening face as he cautiously leaned forward to pick the phone up off the ground at her feet. He swallowed thickly as he lifted the phone to her. "Are you perhaps seeking this?"

Rose snatched the phone from his hand without thanks. With shaking hands she lifted the small device and tapped her finger against a now-shattered screen. Although it was plainly now non-functional, Rose went through the motions of typing in the numbers to make a call.

"M'warning you," she threatened darkly. "You'd best be off."

He shook his head and grimaced at the tepid liquid that fell from his fringe onto his nose. "Madam. I dare suggest that right now the only one who needs to be doing anything is you." His eyes fell to her belly and to the hand that covered it protectively. "You're upsetting your child."

She took the broken phone from her ear to point it at him. "You bein' here and getting all touchy-feeling with her is what's upsetting' her," she countered sharply.

He shook his head, shuddered at the drip of liquid from his chin, and carded his hand through his hair to push it from his face. "I don't see how that is the cause of her upset, my dear. Not when it was her who called out to me to come to her."

Rose leaned down just slightly. Her voice was low and threatening. "If you expect me to believe that pile of rubbish then you have another thing comin'." She leaned back up and pressed her hands either side of her hips in an attempt to push herself up to a stand. Unfortunately, however, the weight of her womb threw her slightly off balance and all she managed to do was fall backward into a slump against the backrest. She let out a moan of frustration. "God help me."

The Doctor rose to a stand and held a hand out to her. "I don't imagine he will be assisting you in getting to your feet, but I can certainly lend you a hand if you wish."

She looked up at him with a glare through her brows and refused his offer of assistance with a shake of her head. "What I'm wishin'," she declared darkly, "is for you to sod off and leave me alone."

"Well…"

"Because my baby's dad," she continued haughtily. "He's not goin' to take lightly to a stranger just comin' up outta nowhere to get handsy with his little girl." She sniffed and lifted her chin to add an air of arrogance. "He's not someone you want to mess with – if you get my drift. Neither are my mates."

The Doctor nodded slowly. "No. I imagine that he wouldn't take kindly to such things. I know I certainly wouldn't." He looked across the park though knitted brows as though searching for someone. "Is he here then?"

"Who?"

The Doctor looked down at her. "The father of your child, of course. Is he here, or even close by?" He looked back out to the distance. "I would expect that I am nearby somewhere. I can't imagine that I would let you out of my sight for an instant. Not when you are so close to giving birth, anyway." He looked back at her with high brows. "Which is any moment now, is it not? How far overdue is she now?"

"Excuse me," she bleated with confusion. "What?"

His expression softened to gentle question. "Are you expecting to birth your child in the TARDIS, or have I acquiesced to allowing a hospital birth?" His face fell into a grimace of distaste and he shook his head. "No. I can't see any timeline where I would agree to put my child's life in the hands of just any doctor. Why, her physiology would astound and terrify them – such as is the fear of your humans in this century." He tipped his head to one side. "21st century, am I right?"

Rose blinked rapidly as her mouth flapped with confusion.

The Doctor took that reaction as a yes and looked away again to focus on the distance. "They don't even trust their own research right now when it comes to the abnormalities and mutations associated with basic evolution and unfortunate gestational irregularities." He gestured toward her womb with a wave of his hand. "You're protecting a half-Gallifreyan child. By Rassilon, if they happen to detect within her the binary vascular system of her father… Oh, who knows what they'll do?" He shuddered and shook his head as his face fell into a wince. The wince quickly shifted to determination. "No. Not a hospital, then. I won't allow it."

Rose floundered somewhat as she fought to find the words to comment. How could she possibly be able to find words for the confusion, concern, fear … and the slightest little piece of hope she had within her right now?

"Wh-Who?" she managed with a stammer. She swallowed a lump that was thick enough to dip her head. "Who are you?"

The soft and timid voice that posed the question to him gave the Doctor a light ray of hope that she wasn't about to continue yelling at him. He offered her a smile and let his eyes capture hers. "I would think I've already made that quite obvious, my dear girl." His eyes drifted down to her belly and he offered the swell a gentle smile. "I'm your child's father."

Her eyes swam with a wash of tears that dammed against her lashes and she shook her head lightly. "You can't be him," she whispered softly, "Not _my_ Doctor."

"I assure you, my precious girl, that I am very much _your_ Doctor." His eyes fell to her belly. "Well, if the presence of my child in your womb is any indication, then I'm _yours_. I don't expect that I'm swanning about the universe playing the cad and impregnating random females."

Her hands lifted to delicately cover her mouth as her tears finally spilled free to roll down her cheek. Her inhales were wet though her nose as she shook her head sadly. "You can't be him," she managed with sorrow. "You don't know me. I don't know you."

His brow lifted high for a moment, but it quickly fell and he nodded knowingly. "Ahh. I expect that I've failed to mention regeneration to you." He shook his head. "A rubbish habit of mine, I do have to admit. I don't know why I always wait until I change to let my companions know about it…"

"I know about regenerations," she offered quietly. "Was with the Doctor – _my_ Doctor - through one.

A broad smile spread across his face at her words. "Well that's relief I must say," he blurted with a full exhale. "It's so trying having to explain it over and over again each and every time it happens. I assure you, however, that I am the Doctor. The one and only. Only one of me, you see." He tipped his head to one side as he let one brow fall in consideration of his declaration. "Well, that's not entirely accurate, is it? Technically there are thirteen of me. Twelve regenerations, thirteen bodies." He drew in a breath and lifted both brows high as his eyes widened almost maniacally. "Regardless of the hair on my head, the clothing on my back, and the shape of whatever body I am carrying, I am still the same man."

"With the same gob," she offered tearfully.

His brows pinched at the tear tracks on her face, and he muttered apologies as he petted his vest in search of a handkerchief. One was quickly located it and he pulled it from a pocket with a flick and a flourish to hand it over to her. "It's clean, I assure you," he said with a one-sided smile. "Although it must be at least three centuries old, I don't believe it's ever been held against any noses or been dabbed against any tears."

He watched as she nodded and wiped delicately at the edge of her eyes. "I don't know why I've never used it," he said quietly. "I've encountered my fair share of damsels in distress and tears, yet have never offered it to any."

She laughed wetly as she folded the white cotton square in her lap. "That's because you're anythin' but a gentleman."

"I'll try my hardest not to take offence to that."

She lifted her eyes to his and gave him a weary look that held both hope and disbelief. "Are you really him? The Doctor?"

He nodded slowly. His own expression held cautious worry as he slowly moved to take a seat on the bench beside her.

"Why are you asking me that question like that?" he asked softly.

"Like what?"

His head angled deeply to one side. "With sorrow, like you haven't seen me in a long time and never expected to see me again."

Her lips pressed into a tight line and she snorted out a rueful laugh through her nose. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes, but she didn't move to wipe them with the handkerchief.

The Doctor watched as sorrow creased her beautiful face once more and took the handkerchief to wipe at her tears himself. His voice was soft and had a definite crack in it. "Where am I?"

"Which you?" she asked with a laugh in her voice. " _This_ you, or the – I'm guessin' – _older_ you?"

"Please tell me that I didn't abandon you," he cut in with panic in his voice. "Tell me that I'm here somewhere, protecting you, loving you, worshipping your existence and being the man you need me to be for you when you're in this condition."

She swallowed and turned her head to look into his worried face. She lifted her hand to trace her fingertip down along his tea-stained and sticky cheek. "Are you really _him_?" she asked softly. "The Doctor?"

"Time Lord of Gallifrey," he continued with a gentle smile. "Embarrassment to the Time Lord Council. Snappy dresser, great sense of humour, and a devastatingly brilliant genius mind."

She spit out a laugh that was both sad and happy.

The Doctor's voice softened. "I assure you that I'm him."

Her eyes didn't lift from where they remained focused on her hands, and her voice remained soft. "I've missed you."

"And I no doubt miss you too," he vowed fiercely. His hand fell to her belly. Before he could make contact with it, her breath hitched, and instead he hovered shortly above it. "And this little one, too."

She kept her head hung and shook it. "You don't know about her."

"Oh don't be so preposterous," he spluttered out indignantly. "If I'm anywhere in this universe then I'm going to know about her. You can't shield a Gallifreyan child from her father. No matter where he is, he'll always know where she is." He finally let his hand settle on the swell of her belly and stroked it with his thumb. "The familial telepathic bond between a Gallifreyan and his child is the strongest of all bonds – even moreso than a marriage bond."

She shook her head. "Trust me, Doctor. You don't know about her."

"Really?" he spluttered indignantly. "So are you suggesting that I somehow forget about the conversation we're having right now?"

She sniffed deeply and held onto that breath as she turned to face him. For a long moment she studied his stormy grey eyes and his incensed tight jawed expression. She exhaled slowly and lowered her head to gaze at his hand as she slowly crawled her fingers across the bench to touch her fingers to his.

"If you did know," she began gently without lifting her eyes. "Do you think I'd be here without you; alone, scared and unsure of where I go from here?" She traced her fingertips along the lined of his fingers, and still didn't look up at him. "Could you really do that to me; to your daughter?"

She let her hand settle atop his and curled her fingers around his hand in a lose hold. "Regardless of how you ever felt about me, Doctor…" she lifted her eyes to his. "And I really want to believe that you loved me."

"I'm sure I do," he replied with a croak in his voice.

That made her smile somewhat shyly and her eyes fell once more. "Even if you didn't love me – and I'm prepared for that you know. I am." She sniffed and looked up at him again. "But no matter how you feel about me, I know you'd love _her_. Fiercely."

His eyes shifted to watch the movement of her hand as she stroked at her belly. "I'd destroy the entire multiverse to protect you both," he vowed passionately on a low voice thick with promise.

He then shifted a sudden movement that drew her breath in sharp. The Doctor twisted in his seat, took hold of her hand, and then slid his hand through her hair to hold her head firmly as he pressed his forehead against hers. His voice growled out of him with vehement promise. "There's no power in the entire universe that could keep me from you." He held her head tighter to pull her forehead more firmly against his. "After all I've seen and all I've lost, there's no way I'd allow anyone or anything to take any more away from me."

"God," she breathed longingly. "How can you make me feel so incredibly loved when you don't even know who I am?"

He didn't release his tight hold on her head. "Tell me your name," he half begged.

"Rose," she answered with a whisper. "Rose Tyler."

"Rose Tyler," he echoed hoarsely. "I'm so very pleased to meet you. I'm _your_ Doctor."

A sob rattled though her chest and shuddered inside her shoulders before it finally erupted from between her lips though a thin line of saliva and a light spray of spittle. Her head fell to his shoulder as her chest heaved with wracking sobs.

He held her as tight as their position would allow and let her dissolve completely against him. He didn't know what had transpired to separate his older self from his lover and his unborn child, but he knew beyond all doubt that he wasn't going to stand by and allow this separation to continue. For whatever reasons were holding his future incarnation back from his budding family, this Doctor was going to rip apart the universe to hunt him down, beat enough sense in him that he'd probably regenerate, and then force a reunion between them.

..Because this… _This_ was completely unacceptable.

He stroked tenderly at her back as Rose fell apart against him and nuzzled his cheek against her hair. "Tell me," he pleaded somewhat urgently into her ear. "Tell me what happened. Let me make up for my transgression against you and tell me how to find me."

"I can't," she sobbed against his shoulder. "It's impossible."

He chuckled softly against her hair. "Oh my precious Rose Tyler. Haven't I ever told you that the only things in the entire universe that are _impossible_ are the things that I just haven't tried to do yet?"

His words only made her sob harder.

Her increased sorrow panicked him. He stroked more firmly at her back and willed her to calm with light kisses and whispers against her temple. "Please tell me," he whispered. "Please."

Her sobbing subsided just enough that she was able to pull her head from off his shoulder. She swiped roughly at her eyes with the butts of her palms and tried to steady herself with a deep inhale. Rose could tell that he was pushing himself to be patient and let her compose herself, and that at any moment, that patience would shatter and he'd end up making angry demands to find his future self so that he could kill him…

…And dressed as he was, it wouldn't surprise Rose in the slightest that this Doctor was a chivalrous man who would likely demand a duel to defend a woman's honour.

With a last swipe at her eyes and then a clumsy wipe at her nose with her wrist, she finally calmed herself down. "There was a battle," she began sadly.

The Doctor flicked out the handkerchief and reached out for her hand to wipe the glistening wetness from her wrist. "That sound like the new _once upon a time_ these days."

She nodded as she watched him dutifully wipe at her hands with the handkerchief. "D-Daleks and Cybermen," she stammered out, noting sadly as he stiffened just slightly in his ministrations. "They somehow made it through the void between the walls of the universe and waged an horrific battle at Canary Wharf."

" _Through_ the void?" he clarified carefully.

She nodded. "The Cult of Skaro, you called them." She watched him swallow heavily. "They fled the Time War inside a void ship…" She inhaled a hiccup and pulled her hands quickly free of his. "Oh. I probably shouldn't have mentioned the war. You don't know about that, right?"

He didn't look up. Instead he reached forward to once again take her hands to wipe tenderly at them with his handkerchief. "It's okay, Rose," he offered quietly. "I know about the war. My planet is currently fighting for its survival. I've just run from it … from horrors that I just can't face anymore."

"Look at me," she whispered softly, urging his chin upward with the crook of her finger. "Doctor, please."

He lifted his gaze at her command and looked into her compassionate face through red rimmed eyes.

Rose's voice remained gentle as she traced the crook of her finger along his jaw. "You can't run from it, Doctor." She shook her head. "Not from the war. Gallifrey needs you to call for arms – the whole universe needs you to fight."

"I've lost everything," he whispered sadly, a broken voice rattling through his chest. "How can I fight when I've got nothing left to _fight for_?"

"Your daughter," she countered immediately in a firm whisper that left him no room to argue. "If you don't fight and end this war, Doctor, then she'll never be."

"I can't," he huffed out sadly. "I just can't."

"I met you after the war," she continued softly in a voice filled with fond remembrance of her gruff, leather-encased Time Lord. "Straight after its end, I believe. You were my grumpy, gruff, battle-hardened Doctor who wore the scars of war." He opened his mouth to protest, but she tilted her head in warning for him to listen. "And even so, you were still kind and loving. You look across the universe with a child's exuberance and thrill, and can't wait to take the hand of a companion and rush into adventure."

He blinked at her words, but let her continue.

"I fell in love with that you," she promised him with a light smile. "All big ears and leather with your snarky attitude and calling me an _ape_." She drew her thumb along his lip and circled it along his cheek. "You survive the war, Doctor. You survive it."

"Does Gallifrey survive?" he asked softly with little to no hope at all in his voice.

Rose's mouth opened wide, closed just slightly, and then closed tightly. She bit at her lips a moment and then released them with a pop. "I can't tell you how the war ends, Doctor. You know that."

He closed his eyes, dropped his head and nodded slowly. She didn't have to reply with a yes or no to give him the answer he was seeking. Her unease to give him insight into Gallifrey's fate was confirmation enough. He truly would lose everything … everything except this wonderful woman and the miracle child growing inside her womb.

The need to protect her rose once again, and this time he felt the need in a far more primal, instinctual manner to preserve what little he had left in the universe to hold onto.

He lifted his head to look into her sympathetic face and found himself astounded by the depth of emotion she held for him – for the Doctor he would become. Where was that man, and why had he left her all alone?

"Where am I?" he demanded hotly. "And _why_ aren't I at your side?"

She seemed slightly taken aback by his sudden switch from sorrow and into what she could only guess was fierce protectiveness. She licked unsurely at her lip and looked off to one side. "Like I said…"

"Look at me," he demanded firmly. "Tell me what I've done and how I can find me, because I intend to fix this and make sure that you are never alone. Never again."

Rose let her eyes slowly shift to look into his. She swallowed thickly and lifted her eyes to the sky above them, hoping that he would lift his eyes as well. She rolled her head backward to look directly above her head. "I'm not from this world," she began on an even voice. "I'm not even from this universe."

She felt his eyes widen and look into the column of her throat, but didn't drop her head. She kept looking at the Zeppelins flying above them as she continued her story. "This universe just happened to be where I ended up, really." She finally let her head roll back down to look at his stunned expression. "I was born and raised in what I've come to call the _Prime_ universe, the nexus of all life, home of Gallifrey and the Time Lords." She inhaled deeply through her nose and exhaled shortly before drawing in another breath. "The Doctor – sorry, _you_ – and me fell here by accident when the TARDIS fell through a crack between walls."

He heard her voice break slightly and took her hands gently in his. He stroked at her knuckles with his thumbs. "Go on."

"We encountered the Cybermen, who almost destroyed this world."

He nodded with understanding. "They're an unpleasant group, that's for sure."

She inhaled deeply. "Anyway. The Doctor and me. We were able to forge an alliance with the people of this world, and save them from the Cybermen with some help from my friend Mickey and my trusty old cellphone that you'd done some jiggery-pokey with back when we first travelled together."

"Jiggery pokery?" he queried with disgust in his voice. "Please tell me that I didn't use that specific term for it."

She had to chuckle. "You did, and I found it very adorable, so shut up." Her amusement fell quickly and she swallowed hard before continuing. "Even though we managed to stop the invasion and get back to the prime universe, we left behind some cracks in the dimensional walls."

"Oh dear," he muttered. "I didn't check?"

She shook her head. "The intention was there, I guess, but we got busy with one new adventure after another. Somehow Torchwood were able to exploit those holes…"

"And Torchwood is…?"

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head. "They were completely our fault, and on my Earth they were far less about protecting Earth as they were exploiting any alien lives and technology for their own gain." She nodded at his displeased growl. "I really don't know the technical logistics behind it, but they were able to find the cracks and kept them open."

"Foolish," he growled in disgust. "Typical behaviour of those looking for power and being far too ignorant to actually know the dangers of it."

"Oh, I agree," she sang sadly. "So. In time, the Cybermen that remained on this side of the parallel found the cracks that Torchwood were holding open and then managed to find their way across the walls into the Prime Universe."

Even though he still held her hand inside his, the Doctor lifted his hand to cover his forehead. He shook his head with a wince of fear that he knew where this was going to lead.

"Problem was, that by holding open the cracks between the walls, Torchwood not only allowed the Cybermen to break through, but also the Daleks who were locked within the void itself." She swallowed and licked at her lip. "You can only imagine the battle that then ensued between the Daleks and the Cybermen when they realized that each of them were after the same thing."

He dropped their hands from his forehead and offered her an apologetic look. "Oh, Rose. I am so sorry. There is no way that any world should have to bear witness to anything of that nature." He held her hands a little bit tighter and shuffled slightly closer toward her. "I imagine there was collateral damage to the Humans as a result of this?"

Rose nodded. "But the Doctor. I mean _you_ …"

"It's okay to make the distinction," he offered gently. "If it makes it easier."

She nodded quickly at that and looked slightly relieved by it. "The Doctor. He was able to engineer the systems that controlled the gateway between the universes." She smiled. "He's so very brilliant. It worked to pull back into the void anything that had ever passed between worlds, the Daleks, the Cybermen, all of them…"

"But you'd passed through the void as well," he realized with horror. "It would've pulled you in as well."

Rose nodded. "We had a back up plan. Of course we did. But unfortunately, there was an issue with a lever that held the line open." Her breath quickened slightly. "It was beside me, and I had to let go of my anchor to set it back online. And I did it, Doctor. I got that system back online and his plan worked. It sucked in all of the Cybermen and the Daleks…"

"And this is where you say _but_ , isn't it?"

"I couldn't hold on," she admitted with a wince. "The pull was too strong and I fell toward the void." Tears filled her eyes and she sniffed wetly though a quickly clogging nose. "At the very last second, I was saved by my dad here in the parallel world. He was able to pop in, and then get me free of the vacuum into the void and landed me on this parallel." Her voice choked. "But the walls closed behind me, Doctor. The cracks, all of them, they sealed themselves up and I got trapped here."

She closed her eyes and let the tears spill down onto her cheeks. "It was three months later that you were finally able to get a message to me." She lifted her reddened eyes to his. "You burned up a sun just to say goodbye to me. You know that?" She schooled her voice with a couple of deep breaths. "You told me that it was impossible for me to see you again, that it would destroy both universes, that they'd collapse if he even tried."

"It's not impossible," he ventured quietly. "It's very uncomfortable, but not impossible."

"In his timeline it is," she countered quickly. "Travel between parallels is impossible now without some kind of universal crisis happening that could destroy all of reality."

He swallowed thickly. That was an additional confirmation – and one he didn't particularly want – that Gallifrey didn't survive the Time War. Only if Gallifrey fell did they lose their ability to materialize between universes. The pain of that knowledge burned inside both of his hearts.

"That's why I don't know about our daughter, isn't it?" he ventured sadly. "The bond couldn't remain intact across parallel walls."

She shook her head. "I couldn't tell him," she admitted sadly. "He was upset enough about the two of us being separated. If he knew that he had a child locked over here with me two, it'd destroy him."

"And in turn the universe itself," the Doctor offered softly. "Because I'd destroy it all to get back to the two of you."

She gave a single laugh through her wettened nose hard enough for her to have to wipe at it with her thumb. "Call me selfish, but I'd like to think he loved me that much."

The Doctor lifted his hand to draw his thumb along her cheek. "I burned up a sun to say goodbye to you, Rose Tyler," he offered with a smile. "I'd say that is a pretty big declaration of the love I have for you at that moment."

Her body shuddered. "I miss you," she choked out. "So much, Doctor."

He leaned forward to press his forehead against hers and inhaled deeply though his nose to let himself drown in her sun-kissed scent. "Let me take you to him."

Her breath hitched and then held expectantly. She swallowed slowly, somewhat hesitant to ask him to repeat that question lest he change it to suggest it was impossible.

"I still have the ability to travel across dimensions," he promised her softly. "Let me give you this. Let's you and I find my older self and reunite the two of you." He blew out a breath against her lips. "If I am going to be forced to go into battle and carry out deeds more nefarious than any man would ever admit to outside of wartime, then let me go into it knowing that when all is said and done I have you to come home to." He smiled with reverence as he lifted his brows to look into her eyes. "My wife and child."

"We're not married," she corrected softly.

"If I have my way – and trust me, I will – then we will be." He pulled his head from hers and stroked his thumb across her cheek. "Let's go to the TARDIS. You and me. Let's find him and give him back the one thing I believe he wants most in the entire universe."

She breathed out her two-letter word of acquiescence and nodded her head.

"Come on," he offered with a smile as he drew himself to a stand and held out his hand to her. "Once I set the scanners to search for him, then I'll take you to say your goodbyes to whomever you wish and I can take you home."

Her eyes suddenly widened and she drew in a very deep breath.

The Doctor frowned at the reaction. "Are you okay, Rose? Is that okay with you? Because if it isn't…"

She shook her head quickly and then looked up at him with wide and very terrified eyes. "Is isn't that," she panted out shortly.

"Then what is it?"

She looked around herself, and then dropped her head down to the part between her legs. She gasped at the puddle underneath her and looked up at him with panic. "I. I think my waters just broke."


	4. Jackie Tyler

A/N: So totally had no time today to get a decent chapter written. Only a half-lunch break today, so I really didn't get all that I had intended to get written... BUT ... at least I got something written, yeah?

And this leads me into the really good bits where the Eight discovers everything he truly has even when he believes he has nothing left at all, so it's all tobogganing fun downhill easy writing from here! Whoot whoot!

...At least I hope so... I already have the final chapter written, so I just need to get myself to that point, which is only two (actually more realistically three) chapters from now. Yah!

Oh, and I do have to give props to Marc Platt and his incredible writing with the Lungbarrow novel ... I stole the Triumphs of Rassilon (in italics) from him... It's one of my favourite chapters of the book: The Doctor at the tender age of 5 1/2 being just as insolent and cheeky as he is at 900! If you haven't read it, please do. Your heart will break, which in turn makes your love for our Doctor soar high. (and you will also gasp out a stunned breath when you find out who Susan really is and how she came to be with the Doctor...dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn) I honestly wish this book was considered canon ... because it truly is a wonderful and brilliant story ...

...But I love Gallifrey and the Time Lords, so I would think that...

~~oooOOOooo~~

"… _And Rassilon, in great anger, banished the Other from Gallifrey that he might never return to the world_ ," the Doctor chanted to himself as he strode quickly along the grass toward his TARDIS. Rose Tyler – the mother of his apparently about-to-be-born daughter – was nestled awkwardly in his arms. Mere seconds ago she had suggested that perhaps her waters had broken and that it might be time for the newest little Time Tot to make her entrance into the waiting universe.

"… _There was great rejoicing through the Citadel_ …"

He had quickly investigated the source of the fluid that was seeping through the slats of the park bench and determined that yes, her waters had indeed broken. Actually. If he wanted to be a right git and claw for more accuracy in that statement (and let's face it, _git_ was probably part of the multi-syllable word that made up his real name) then he would say that it was clear that her amniotic sack had ruptured and that the fluid (or "waters" as laboring mothers were prone to calling it) had been expelled. Expelled from her uterus and now splashed to the four corners of the small cement pad that held the park bench.

"… _But the Other, as he fled, stole away the Hand of Omega and departed the world forever_ …"

The rupture of the amniotic sack and the excitement of his little girl filling his mind as she prepared herself to enter the world and meet her loving parents meant only one thing: He was about to assist in the birth of a daughter he hadn't even conceived yet.

Oh, mighty Rassilon, he hadn't prepared himself for anything like this.

Speaking of Rassilon: " _Hear now of Rassilon and his mighty works. He who single-handedly vanquished the darkness and_ …"

"What you talking about?" Rose asked him breathlessly against his heaving chest. "I can't understand you. Is everythin' okay with the baby?"

He nodded quickly as he swallowed a hard lump in his throat. "Everything is fine, Rose," he answered with a cautious tone. "Fine and dandy I must say."

She wriggled against him. "Then what're you mumbling about?" At this point she wasn't feeling any actual contractions, but that didn't mean that she wasn't feeling any discomfort. Gentle as he was, the Doctor did have her curled up into a bit of a tight ball in his arms. She was seeing her knees for the first time in weeks, which had to mean that she was probably squishing their little baby. That thought alarmed her just slightly.

"Could you let me down, Doctor?" she peeped with a tug at his cravat. "I can walk, you know."

"I'd much rather you didn't," he countered smoothly as he tightened his hold on her just slightly.

"Well I'd much rather you didn't fold me into a pretzel and squash my little baby into a lumpy nugget like you are."

His steps faltered just slightly, and then he stopped walking altogether. He glanced down at her with a curious expression and a single brow arched high over his eye. "Are you always so prone to nonsensical exaggeration, dear?"

She blinked up at him. "Are you always so prone to talking to yourself in a foreign language and completely ignoring your companion when she's tryin' to get your attention?" She held up her hand and shook her head before he could comment. "No. Never mind. I already know the answer to that question, ta."

He remained still for a moment and just looked down at her slightly amused countenance with his own somewhat amused expression.

"And I will suppose that you are prone to cheekily asking rhetorical questions to your doting Time Lord just to be able to give yourself the opening to levering a little bit of playful insult." He winked. "Am I correct?"

"Partially," she breezed with a whisper. "But I don't really need a reason, yeah? You always give me the opening I need."

He resumed his walk, but kept his eyes on her. His voice was soft and tender when he spoke again.

"How are you feeling?"

"Scared," she admitted softly.

"So am I," he whispered in a genuinely tender voice. "Which is why I'm reciting the Triumphs of Rassilon." He let out a breath and looked up as the TARDIS came into view. "I find it centres me; although I'm not entirely sure why that is. I absolutely loathed all of those tedious brainbuffing exercises I had to endure as a loomling."

"Will you teach it to me?" she asked him in a tiny voice. "It might help me too."

He opened his mouth and let his head tilt back lightly to laugh. "Oh, my precious girl. That would require you to have a working understanding of the High Gallifreyan language." He approached the TARDIS doors at a quick stride and shifted his hold on Rose slightly in order to be able to retrieve his key. His eyes widened as the doors immediately opened wide and welcoming to them both.

He paused at the threshold between Earth and his TARDIS' temporal dimension and coked his head to the side. "I see. Are you agreeing to talk to me, now?"

"Have you been upsetting her again?" Rose asked with a smile. She then looked toward the TARDIS with a smile. "Hello beautiful," she cooed gently. "I've _missed_ you."

The Doctor stepped into the main console room of the TARDIS and, after pausing at the sudden intake of breath and a murmur of how different she looked from Rose, kicked the doors closed behind him. He felt the wash of familiarity and warmth of love from his ship toward the woman held inside his arms and swallowed thickly.

"I believe, Rose Tyler," he began with a whisper. "That my ship has missed you as well."

"She looks so _different_ ," Rose remarked with the smallest of winces at a pulling discomfort from her womb.

He took that wince to be one of disappointment. "You don't like it?"

Her frown deepened as she drew in some slow and deep breaths through her nose. "I didn't say that," she answered breathlessly. "I love the TARDIS…" she paused to focus on her breathing a little more and closed her eyes. "No matter what she looks li-" she ended the word with a long groan that seemed to draw every single bit of breath out of her lungs.

Rose struggled to draw in another breath, which made the Doctor juggle her worriedly in his hold. "Oh, my dear and precious girl. It looks like our daughter is most definitely making her moves to enter into this universe."

Rose let out another whine, this time one through an open mouth, and then panted out as the pain released. "But does she have to do it so painfully?"

"I'm afraid so," he answered with apology. "But I'm sure that I can find some techniques that will help alleviate the pain enough that you might be able to somewhat enjoy this experience." He lifted her in his arms, higher against his chest, and kissed her on top of her head. "Come on," he whispered into her hair. "Into the med bay with you."

Her hand shot out to the side to clutch at one of the support beams at the centre of his console room. It stopped him from being able to continue through to the main corridor to the interior of the ship. "Can we call my mum first?"

He wasn't quite sure that he heard that right. The request was made so quietly and timidly that he thought for sure he was dreaming it. He looked down at her hand, and to the white knuckled grip she had on the support beam, and then chanced a look into her large, pleading eyes.

…That was a look that would pretty much guarantee that he'd give her absolutely anything that her heart could possibly desire.

"I'm sorry," he bleated with a strangled and sheepish voice. "What was that?"

"My mum," she clarified with clear embarrassment. "Can we call her, please? I. I've never done this before. I don't think I know how."

"Well it's quite a natural process really," he blurted without really thinking. "Your body will know exactly what it needs to do to get you through…" His train of thought faltered as he saw a short flash of physical pain fire by her eyes and her breathing became a series of whimpers. "Mother. Yes. Indeed. Every girl needs her mother in moments like these, I expect."

Her eyes widened and she nodded frantically. "Please, Doctor. Can we call her before you take me to the med bay?" She smoothed his cravat with her fingers and looked up at him with large doe eyes of pleading.

His knees almost gave out in his sudden need to give her anything that her heart desired.

"I don't know that I can do this without her," Rose continued pitifully. "Please?"

He nodded frantically in response and gently lowered his arm to let her slide into a stand at his side. He held her supportively with one arm as the other reached out to pull the keyboard toward him. "Are you okay to stand, Rose?"

She nodded and steadied herself against the console. "I. I think so. The pain comes and goes."

"It will for the next little while," he agreed somewhat breathlessly. "Now. How can we reach your mother? Do you have her phone number?"

Her eyes widened with embarrassment and she held up her broken phone. "Uhm. Her number's in here, and … and it's broken."

His brow arched high. His voice was low, yet incredulous. "Are you telling me that you don't know it by rote?"

She scratched at her hair in a sheepish gesture. "Oh. Well. I didn't think to memorize it," she breathed out softly. "I have her on speed dial in the phone, and haven't had to … you know …" She looked up at him with a pained expression. Her sheepishness then gave way to frustration. "Okay. I've never had her number memorized, okay? I've always carried a cellphone that has her number in it!"

His mouth shifted to one side and his brows moved opposite to each other; one up, the other down.

"And your back-up plan in the event that your cellphone breaks and you need to get hold of her is…?"

She narrowed her eyes at him and norted out sharply through her nose. "Is to thump the soddin' Time Lord who seems to know everythin' about time and space but wants to be a git and pretend that he can't get hold of her without my help."

His brows lifted in perfect synchronicity at her hastily hissed threat. "Are you perchance experiencing a contraction right now?"

She hummed her affirmative.

"I see," he replied blandly as he turned to the console and took a couple of calming breaths. "Perhaps if you could provide me with an address and I'll have the TARDIS take us directly to her." His eyes shifted cautiously toward her. "It would bring the two of you together far more quickly than phoning her to provide her with our location. That would be preferable, yes?"

"Please," she whimpered with a nod of her head. With her hands clutching at the countertop with a white-knuckled grip and her voice strained as she fought off the pain of labour, Rose provided him with the address that would take them to the Tyler mansion.

The Doctor was flicking levers and twisting dials before she'd even finished providing him with the address. It was only a short moment after the whining groan of the engines that the entire room gave a shudder and then fell silent. The Doctor looked to the ceiling and levered his chin forward just slightly in question as to whether or not the TARDIS had actually taken flight at all. Never before had she been _that_ smooth.

"Huh," he breathed out after a moment. "Looks like way may have stumbled into a bit of a problem." He lowered his head to look at Rose with apology. "I expect that she's having some difficulty in navigating and orientating herself correctly inside this parallel. If you could just give me a moment…"

The pounding at his TARDIS doors ended his line of thought rather quickly.

"Doctor," a shrill voice voice called from the other side. "How many bleedin' times do I have to tell you that you're not parkin' that soddin' box of yours right snack in my living room?"

His eyes blew wide and he snatched a quick look toward Rose. He swallowed thickly and cleared his throat. "Your mother?"

Rose winced with the pull of another mild contraction and nodded. She panted out a couple of breaths and waved to the door. "You might wanna open the door for her. Otherwise she just might barge her way on in 'ere and give you a slap for messin' up her carpet."

He pointed to the door as the yelling and pounding from the other side intensified somewhat. "Your mother _knows_ me?" His eyes widened further as she nodded. "To clarify," he asked again with a waver in his voice. "I've _met_ your _mother_?"

Rose held at her back and nodded, then shook her head slowly as she walked toward a plushy looking couch to the side of the room. She analyzed the piece of furniture a moment in order to create a plan of attack as to how to fall into it with at least a little grace.

"Don't make it sound like it's the most horrific thing you've ever encountered," she said with a moan as she turned around and stooped lightly in her knees in an awkward attempt to fall backward into the chair. "You both won't admit it, Doctor, but you and mum love each other."

"I can't imagine…"

"You're family, yeah," she continued with a wince and a whine at being unable to get enough balance or stability to be able to fall into the chair without hurting herself. "Oh forget it," she muttered to herself. "I wouldn't be able to get up out of it anyway."

"With my assistance you could," the Doctor managed with a shrug.

Rose looked up at him and then made a shooing motion toward the door. "Well go on then. Go get my mum."

He looked to the door; that actually rattled underneath the onslaught of pounding fists from the other side, and then looked back at Rose. "Is it truly a necessity that she be here for this?" He looked back to the door. "Judging by the caterwauling I'm hearing from your mother right now, I am slightly suspect on your assurance that she _loves_ me in the familial way."

"Trust me," Rose assured him with a smile.

"I've just _met_ you," he challenged.

"So?" she called in reply. "I trust _you_. An' I mean _this_ you."

"Well, touché, my dear. I can't exactly argue with that, can I?" he asked her in an incredibly tender voice. "Then again. Arguing with a woman preparing to gift me with a child is not the mark of a gentleman, is it?"

"Again. You're not a gentleman," she teased with a smile touched by the slightest tip of her tongue. She whimpered and huffed through her nose as she held at her back with both hands and began a walk around the console. "Enough messin' about and stallin'," she declared with a tight grimace across her face. "My books tell me that I have to walk around a bit, so I'm gonna stroll about while you get mum."

"Right," he muttered as he straightened his jacket with a tug at his lapels and stood tall as though expecting to embark on a perilous journey. "And what would your mother's name be?"

"Jackie," Rose answered though her teeth in a hiss of pain. "Everyone else calls her Jacks, but you've always called her Jackie."

He gave a firm nod of his head. "Right. Jackie." He blew out a breath of preparation and strode purposefully toward the doors of his beloved ship. He licked at his lip, inhaled a breath to draw himself tall and reached forward to unlatch the doors.

The door opened and he stepped out into a room filled with bright sunlight from large bay windows…

….and one very irate looking blonde woman with far too much makeup on her face and a pink velour jacket and pant set covering the slightly rounded figure of a middle-aged woman.

The Doctor held onto his breath as he stepped deeper into the room. He looked warily at the woman as she angrily folded her arms across her chest and then slouched to one side to be able to tap her foot on the cream-coloured shag carpeting at her feet.

He swallowed thickly.

"Hello, Jackie."


	5. A Mother

A/N: I watched the Doctor Who movie with Eight over the weekend (previously hadn't seen it) and was absolutely horrified at just how wrong I've been writing Eight!

I apologise for that. As I had actually never seen anything with Eight before I was basing his characterization off other fanfics and how other authors write him ... I'm not going to change that, of course, (because it is too late now) but I am stunned by just how wrong I had gotten him... Damn ... Oh well. I'll write him a little more accurately in the Year that Was fic when I finally pull him in.

Gah...

Anyhow... a short one today as I was short on time. I hope you enjoy this at least a little bit.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The fold she had in her arms tightened as Jackie Tyler took in the appearance of the man who had stepped through the doors of the TARDIS. She'd be lying if she said that she hoped that the man who walked out would be the version of him that wore pinstripes with Converse; but the dapper fellow who walked out in his place wasn't exactly a disappointment. He looked like he might even be a romantic kind of fellow – if his style of dress was anything to go by – instead of the flirty, manic, flighty man who'd left them all here on this world so many months before.

She bit back a smile at the way he shifted uncomfortably underneath her glare and blinked slowly at him.

"You've changed again," she muttered dryly.

The Doctor's lips pursed just lightly. He blew out his breath and looked off to the side, unsure of how to respond to her apparent and nonchalant reaction to a new face.

Not liking the silence, Jackie cleared her throat to get him to look at her again. "How long's it been for you, then?" she asked dryly. "And what mess did you get into this time to go about changin' your face?"

He licked at his lip and gave her a soft, but cautious look. "I take it you're familiar with how Time Lords regenerate?"

She rolled her eyes with inhaled an arrogant sigh. "Of course I am, you plum. Don't you remember Christmas a coupla years back when Rose brought you home all …" She paused speaking long enough to narrow her eyes at him in a glare of cautious scrutiny. When she spoke again it was slow and guarded. "You _are_ the Doctor, yeah?"

He nodded as slowly as she had spoken her question. His answer was just as cautious. "My answer will depend.."

"On what?" she barked out dangerously. She flicked up a finger at him before he could answer that question. "And just so you know. I'm not as fragile and dainty as I look. So don't go about thinking you have the advantage here, mate."

"I would most certainly not accuse you of anything like that," he blurted without thinking. "I can quite plainly see that there's nothing _fragile_ or _dainty_ about you."

Her mouth gaped to stretch her face out in a long line of incredulous insult. "What'd you…? What're you _implyin'_?"

His eyes widened and he immediately held both hands out in front of him. "Ahh. Yes. What I actually meant to say was…."

"Oh," she coughed. "Your foot's in too deep now. Don't bother tryin' to backpedal." She relaxed and flicked her hand toward him in a dismissive gesture. "Yeah. You are _definitely_ the Doctor." She then pointed at him. "Rude, you are."

He cleared his throat into his fist and nodded. "That does seem to be a constant across all of my incarnations."

"No change there in the three of you I've known now." She looked back at him with an upward tip in her shoulder. "Brain to mouth filter malfunction. Don't think before you open that gob of yours, do you?" She dropped her arms from their fold and lifted one hand to point at him and drag her finger downward in the air…

…Although separated by at least fifteen feet, he could feel the drag of her painted fingernail down over his lapel.

"I still remember when she brought you home that Christmas," Jackie went on in a rant. "All charm you were when you stepped out of the TARDIS full of freckles and hedgehog hair and the like." She dropped her hand to her side. "And I thought to myself: Well, Jackie. Here's a younger, fitter bloke who just might have gotten himself a few more manners. "

Her arms found themselves folded across each other once again, but one hand was able to point at him once more. "I quickly found out I was wrong, didn't I, then?" she eyed him up and down. "Oh, never mind that me and mine were doing our best to help you out when you were passed out and sick from changin' your face. Any opportunity you get to take a snark and be a git…"

"Then I will hope,' he began with an apologetic voice and a light downward tip of his head. "That you took an opportunity to let me know how you felt about my apparently superior rudeness."

"You mean did I thump you?"

He lifted his eyes and exhaled a rather long suffering sigh. "I'm not exactly a proponent of violence…"

"Well I'm not one to go protestin' about the use of corporal punishment, either," she huffed. "I got the wooden spoon from my mum when I misbehaved. I turned out alrigh'."

"Hardly relevant," he huffed under his breath. After a long exhale, he finally tipped his head in a respectful dip and evened out his tone of voice. " Jackie. While this may be an advanced apology on my behalf, I respect that it is probably quite overdue for you."

She twisted her head to look sideways at him. "What you on about, then?"

"You have me at a clear disadvantage," he said smoothly with a smile. "You know me. In fact you seem to know me quite well through not just one, but two incarnations." His smile brightened. "Which is both remarkable and wondrous…"

"Go on," she breathed hotly.

He cleared his throat and dropped a hand into his trouser pocket. "Well. To continue." He offered her a weak smile. "The versions of me that you seem to know…" He inhaled deeply through an open mouth and then released that breath before drawing in a shorter one. "Well. I'm not quite there yet."

"And I'm not quite following you."

"Did I happen to tell you that I have thirteen bodies?"

A perfectly manicured brow rose on her forehead. "Thirteen, huh?" She eyed him up and down a little. "Do you get to pick what you look like?"

His brows fell into a tight frown of perplexity. "I don't quite know what that has to do with anything." He rubbed at the back of his neck and considered her question somewhat. "I suppose we can. I watched Romana cycle through a few faces before she found one to settle on, and I don't believe she wasted any additional regenerations in doing so – although I might have to investigate that and confirm."

"And who's Romana then," Jackie growled threateningly. "She's not your _wife_ is she?"

His brows shot high and the expression that morphed across his features was one of utter horror. "Oh by Rassilon's crest no!" He paced a little, his expression of horror not falling from his handsome face. "That's not to say that she isn't a lovely lady who would probably make any Time Lord a proud husband – Of course she'd have to find herself one who doesn't mind being emasculated by her. She's a beautiful and brilliant woman who is not in any way too proud to let you know about it." He shook his head and blew out a breath through pursed lips. "Constant reminders from that one, let me tell you."

"Sounds like someone else I know," Jackie deadpanned dryly. "Trait of your species I'd suggest."

The Doctor looked slightly hurt by that. "Oh. Please don't say that. I am really nothing like them." He offered her a slightly juvenile look of pleading. "I honestly am a very nice person once you get to know me, Jackie."

Jackie relaxed her tightly held posture to drop her head with a chuckle. She slowly shook her head as she lifted it high to look at him. "Oh. Come here, you plum," she called as she opened her arms to him. "Course we know you're alright."

His eyes blew wide, and he made no move to walk into her arms as he posture was asking him to. "Uh. What're you doing, Jackie?"

"If you don't come over here, I'm coming to you," she threatened jokingly.

If possible, his eyes widened more. "Hold on, what?"

Jackie rolled her eyes and strode quickly forward. Although the Doctor quite clearly shrank back at her approach, she quickly wrapped both arms tightly around his stiffened arms in a tight embrace. She purred out a long moan and tubbed at his back. "Oh, Doctor. It's good to see you again."

"Again?" he peeped. "Jackie, while I'm quite honestly flattered that you…"

She moaned again without warning and pulled back from him to take another and much more closer look at this new Doctor. She ignored the look of utter shock and discomfort as she took his face in her hands and peppered several kisses on his cheeks, mouth, nose and .wherever else she could reach.

He couldn't even move. The Doctor's eyes were blown wider than they'd ever been in all of his 800 years. He couldn't speak. All he could do was peep with discomfort at her attentions.

Jackie did finally move away from attacking him with parental smooches more appropriate for a young child than a fully grown man, and she did so with a look of disgust as she wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand.

"My dear lord, Doctor. Have you gone and bathed yourself in tea – and very cheap tea I might add – or somethin'?"

His brows pinched and then relaxed in realization. "Ah. Yes. It seems that pregnant women are somewhat opposed to complete strangers walking up to them and trying to communicate with their unborn child." He cleared his throat and forced out: "By touch."

The smile that stretched across Jackie's mouth was one of complete adoration; the look of a mother completely proud of their child. She then put her hand in his and led him toward the kitchen. "C'mon, you. Let's get you cleaned up a bit, shall we? There is nothing distinguished about a Time Lord all sticky with cheap bagged tea."

The Doctor trembled just slightly at the enormity all this. At this sudden maternal onslaught from a woman who was a complete stranger to him. Oh, sure, she knew him – and obviously very well – but he knew nothing about her at all. It was, however, very moving to know that he would in time forge a new familial relationship with affections he would have never been afforded from the family he'd lost. His mouth watered as much as his eyes did to find that level of affection levied toward him. "I. Uh."

"You've seen her then; our Rose?" Jackie began with a loving smile as she rounded her hands in the space over her own stomach. "All big and carrying the next little Time Lord."

His mouth flapped helplessly. All he was capable of was to nod his head.

"I take it it was our little Madam who showered you with tea," she said with a light laugh as she stood him next to the kitchen sink and reached around him for a paper towel. She put it under the faucet to wet it and squeezed out the excess water into the sink. "I think I might have to have a little bit of a chat to her."

"Indeed," he choked out breathlessly. His eyes widened once again as Jackie cupped his chin firmly in her hand and began to dab at his face with the wet towel. "And speaking of…"

"Speaking of, indeed," she continued. "That poor girl has been a right mess since you've been gone, Doctor. Heartbroken and scared she was." She exhaled as she dragged the towel across his forehead and into his fringe. "No matter how me and Pete tried to get her through it, that poor girl's heart just wouldn't let her get over you."

"I'm sorry," he whispered out sadly.

"And how long's it been for you, then, Sweetheart," she cooed as she stretched the towel over his head and patted it to let it soak up the tea from his hair. She then left it in place and leaned across him to pull out another one. "For you to go changin' face, I imagine it's been a while. Time travellin' and all that nonsense."

The Doctor shook his head and opened his mouth again to speak, but was silenced as another wet paper towel was swiped across his mouth.

"She never moved on from you, Doctor," Jackie continued softly. "Said no one was good enough." She stopped wiping and looked into his face with a slightly steeled look. "Which is not nearly as pretentious as it sounds you know. And many think it is all airs and graces she's got. Bless her, but when she's been given the whole of space and time from you, there aren't too many out there who can live up to that."

His chin was firmly in her hold and his cheeks squeezed underneath her fingers enough that it was difficult to speak properly. "She's got me now," he managed with a slur through a mouth that couldn't close enough to properly form his words. "And time and space. Her and the baby."

Jackie didn't release his chin. She gave him a hard look. "You promise me you're gonna look after her, Doctor. No more flitting around and flirting with pretty French bints makin' her feel like she's not your priority." She caught the surprise in his eyes and gripped tighter. "And don't you go pretendin' that you don't know what I'm talkin' about. Rose told me about the mess with madam de Pompous tart: uncrowned queen of bloody France and all."

"Madame Du Pompadour?" He questioned through his still-squished cheeks. "I hardly think that…"

"I mean it," Jackie warned darkly. "No more of that swannin' about the universe flirting with anythin' in a skirt. You hear me?" she tossed the wet towel onto the counter and lifted her hand to pull the other from his hair. "You've made yourself real pretty this time around, Doctor. I hope you're not plannin' on playin' the romantic in order to get fresh with the ladies."

He grinned. He couldn't help it, really. "You think I'm pretty this time around?"

She lifted her eyes to his hair and pursed her lips thoughtfully. She then released him to take a step backward to scrutinise him a little closer. "Well. You could do with a decent haircut – you look like you're wearing a chestnut sheep's ass on your head."

"Charming," he moaned with a roll in his eyes.

"I can certainly sit you down and give you a good shearing. And I think a change in clothes might be a good idea." She held up a finger that ordered no argument. "And I mean for more than just washing out the tea stains. The Jane Austen look is classy, but really not appropriate for this day and age if you get my meaning…"

" _This_ day and age," he spat incredulously. "I'll have you know that as a time traveller…"

"Yeah yeah," she drawled with a nonchalant wave of her hand. "You're in a different _day and age_ every single _day_ and blah blah." She walked past him to grab a kettle and wandered back toward the sink. She didn't look at him as she opened the faucet to fill the kettle. Her voice became breathy. "How many more times are we going to argue this one, you plum?"

"Well, this is the _first_ time I've argued it with you," he muttered with a pout.

She stilled at that comment and then slowly set the kettle down in the sink. "If anyone else said that," she said quietly. "Then I'd threaten to slap the amnesia out of them." She took a deep breath and turned slowly to face him directly. "But you. You sayin' it." She tipped her head to one side. "You're a younger you, aren't you?"

"That's a lot of you's."

"Yeah," she deadpanned. "I'm putting together a sheep farm."

He snorted a laugh and smiled a close-lipped smile.

Jackie's voice was still soft. "Answer the question. You're _you_ before you met her, aren't you?"

His voice was a whisper when he answered with a nod. "I'm afraid so."

Jackie shook her head. Her voice took on a slight panic. "Oh. This. This'll destroy her." She looked at him and then looked away with a wince. "Seein' you, but a younger you, and knowing that she can't be with you because she has to meet the future you as her past self or something…" she inhaled though an open mouth. "Oh by the Lord. This'll break her, Doctor."

This time it was the Doctor who offered a friendly gesture. He put his hand on her shoulder and coaxed her to look toward him with a soft coo in his voice. "Look at me, Jackie." He waited for her eyes to meet with his and continued. "Please don't worry yourself. I'm going to take her to my older incarnation – the one that matches her timeline."

She blinked an unspoken question at him.

He understood what she didn't say.

"I promise you, Jackie, that he's missing his Rose desperately," he vowed fiercely. "I give you my vow upon the tomb of Rassilon that he will take her into his arms – both her and the baby – and never let them go again."

"How can you make that promise," she asked softly with obvious fear in her tone. "How?"

"Because he's _me_ ," he answered firmly. "And I can tell you right now, from what little I've seen from the both of you that there is nothing in the universe that would make me want to give this up."

"Except a white wall," Jackie countered sadly.

He opened his mouth to question just what she meant by that, but was cut off by a shrill screech of his name from the TARDIS. "Oh. Yes. That's right."

Jackie gasped and shoved herself past the Doctor. "Was that Rose?"

"Yes," The Doctor answered with embarrassment. "There was actually a reason that I dropped by so unannounced in the middle of your living room."

Jackie ran from the kitchen and into the living room. As she reached the TARDIS, however she paused quick enough that her upper body lurched forward and she stumbled. "Is she okay, Doctor?"

"Oh," he sang with false bravado. "Absolutely fine is our Rose. She's just…"

"Why's she screamin'?"

"Ahh," he breathed out with a nod in his head that took his shoulders into the nod with it. "Yes. I believe she's gone into labour, Jackie." He rubbed at his head. "Which is why I'm here, actually. While I am perfectly equipped to be able to deliver a child in my TARDIS with very little effort on my part…."

"They're'll be plenty on hers," Jackie growled.

"Indeed," he answered back sharply. "And if you'll stop a moment and let me explain, then you'd know that the whole reason I stopped by is because Rose is asking for her mother."

"Asking for her _mother_ ," Jackie clarified darkly.

"Yes," he growled in reply.

"She's askin' for her _mother_ , because she's scared and hurtin' right now."

"Correct," he answered impatiently in wonder as to just what part of it she wasn't comprehending.

Jackie spun on him. "And when were you thinking of tellin' me that," she demanded hotly. "After our cup of tea and a little chat about older yous and haircuts?"

His brows lifted indignantly. "I was rather hoping that at some juncture in our meeting you'd actually let me get enough of a word in that I could inform you of your daughter's current predicament."

"You could've just interrupted me," she snapped in reply. "Never stopped you before when you thought whatever you had to say was more important than anyone else that's talking in the moment."

"That would be because typically it is," he countered snidely with a smile that matched his tone of voice.

"Oh, I'm gonna thump that smile from your face."

Rose's head, with mussed hair and a sweated brow, poked through the main doors of the TARDIS. She let her eyes flick between Jackie and the Doctor and let out a huff to notice that they were both in the midst of a heated exchange.

"Really, you two?" she bellowed out shrilly. "You really gonna do this right now? I've got a baby trying to claw its way out of me by inflicting the worst pain possible against her mother, and you want to have a pissing contest?" she panted out through a moan of pain and waved her hands at them as she almost choked on her swallow.

"You know what," she managed breathlessly. "Forget about me, yeah? This is a _natural process_ , I'm sure my body knows exactly what to do to bring this little Time Lady into the universe." Her head disappeared, but her arm waved out the door. "You just keep doin' what you're doin'"

Jackie gasped out a sound that might have accused Rose of being a little _madam_ , but she strode forward with determination to see to her daughter's worry. She grabbed hold of the Doctor's cravat and tugged him in after her.

"C'mon, Doctor," she said on a low voice that held a lot of threat. "She's going to want to lay curses, vexes and threats against entire lineages as she goes through this." She flicked her eyes to him. "Best that it's all directed at you seeing as you were the one who put her into this condition."

"Well," he drawled with a lift in his lip. "Technically…."

"And you might want to check your wardrobe room for a pair of iron-plated pants."

That made him frown. "And why's that then."

"Because if she's hurtin'," Jackie answered with a smirk. "She just might make a grab on something that you'd better be prepared for." She grinned. "I did it to Pete. _Twice_."


	6. The Wonder of the Universe is a Mother

A/N: These are the hardest kinds of chapters to write. I mean, it's an amazing thing to experience (albeit it painful as all heck), but at the same time it's a squeamish subject. And labour is not for the squeamish ... lots of really slippery, disgusting, undignified and gross things happen to a woman in labour. There is zero beauty in the process, let me tell you. The end result is most definitely lovely, but getting there? Oh ... I'd totally do it all over again if I had the opportunity to do so ... but I won't ever tell anyone that it was a wholly magical experience.

But that's just my experience. I'm sure there are women who will speak of it as though they saw unicorns and rainbows and fairy dust when they were in the delivery room... just not me ...

I've really tried to have a little fun with this, and I took out much of the ugly side of things. I didn't want to prolong things and get graphic ... for two reasons: One, noone wants to read that. Two, everyone's birthing experience is different, and so it's difficult to keep it believable to mothers who experienced something WAAAAAAY different to what I've put in here. So that said ... I pretty much only focused on the important bits of the entire experience and that's the emotional part of things... Especially with the Doctor.

Is this fluffy? Yeah. Do I make fun of certain things and not take it too seriously? Of course I do. Do I end on the sappiest note EVER? Oh, you bet I do.

I hope you like ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose Tyler had to admit that the second labor and delivery room provided by the TARDIS was quite lovely. When she had first entered the room, it was a sterile, multi bed room that looked more like an entire hospital ward than something private and comfortable. She counted at least six gurneys all surrounded by pastel green cloth curtains that pulled around each bed via a railing that formed an oblong shape around it. Semi-glossed tiles that resembled bricks lined the walls. They weren't white, like she would've expected them to be. They were green, just like the curtains, but were a muted shade of that colour that gave it a more ancient and faded look. The ambiance given by the muted colours and the design of the gurneys themselves looked to be from around the middle of the 20th century didn't give her a great deal of confidence. It felt like a psych-ward in a screamer horror film from the 1970's.

And that wouldn't do. Not. At. All.

She had quickly backed out of the room and then spun to close the door with her back. She lumbered breathlessly back against the door and held her eyes closed tightly together as she wished with all of her might that the next time she opened the doors to that room that it wouldn't look like something from the mind of Wes Craven.

"Please please please please," she chanted quietly in her mind as she slowly turned around and opened the doors again.

With thrill and genuine pride in the old TARDIS, Rose entered the room with a breath of awe. The two lines of gurneys had been replaced with a single – and very advanced looking – hospital bed with all of the creature comforts that a sick and ailing person might want: remote controlled mattress adjustment and the such. Sickly pastel green had been replaced with brilliant whites lined with a piercing blue that she initially mistakened as being neon tube lighting, but was in fact a series of intricately placed reflective ribbon.

The lighting itself was a warm colour. Not quite yellow, but not white and bright. It was an ambiance of warmth and comfort, and Rose pressed her hand against the wall in thanks to the old girl.

"Now," she breathed through gritted teeth as she ambled toward the bed. "If you could possibly work your magic to get rid of this bleedin' pain, you'd be my hero for all eternity."

The Doctor's voice came in a chuckle from the doorway. "Oh, I'm afraid that for all her brilliance, the TARDIS isn't able to prescribe and administer pain medication." He sniffed with obvious amusement. "Now, my dear, if you wouldn't mind climbing into bed…"

Rose turned quickly toward him with a retort on the very tip of her tongue. She gasped instead at his sudden proximity. He was almost nose to nose with her, and she had a rather detailed close-up view of his roguishly handsome face.

"Well hello," she said with a breathy voice through a toothy smile.

"And a rather breathy hello to you too," he sang with a wink in his eye. His smile fell into an expression of concern as he watched her smile stiffen into a hidden grimace. "Now how are you feeling?"

Aside from a few deep breaths that exhaled noisily through her nose, Rose was silent. The look in her eyes asked for him to give her just a moment that lasted approximately thirty seconds. With an exhale and a pained look in her eye she finally shrugged. "It hurts. A lot."

He nodded with empathy for her pains. "Well then, my dear. This looks to be your lucky day. While my TARDIS is ill-equipped to administer pain medication on her own, I am both qualified and very knowledgeable in pain management." He held out his hand to offer assistance in getting onto the gurney. "I'm sure that I can do something to ease the bulk of pains."

Rose sucked in a breath as she clumsily maneouvred onto the gurney. "If you can do that," she managed with obvious effort. "Then I'll love you forever."

"I would hope that you already do," he breezed softly as he pulled a sheet from the table beside the bed to throw it across her hips, knees and thighs. "Considering that you're gifting me a child." He shifted his hands to curl underneath her knees and coaxed them upward with a light pressure of his fingers. "For you to choose to do that for me, Rose." He smiled. "That says a lot about how you should already feel about me."

A laugh sounded from the doorway as Jackie walked into the room with towels folded across her arm and a camera hanging from a cord around her fingers. "Oh, Sweetheart. These days having a child isn't always about love."

"I beg to differ," he replied with flat indignance.

"Don't get your mood on with me, Doctor," she sang in reply. "I'm not lyin'. Conception is more about the shag than the feelings behind it…"

"Mum!"

"Don't play the priss with me, Rose," she answered back with a mock-affronted glare toward her child. "Two-thirds of the babies born on the Estate weren't created by _love_. All lust and misbehavin' is what brought them about." She waved her hand before Rose could argue. "Oh, of course plenty of little ones come about because they have parents who love each other, but there's plenty of girls doin' it by themselves because the lust overruled their common sense to protect themselves."

"Yeah,' Rose huffed out. "Well I love 'im, Mum. My baby was created 'cause I love him."

Jackie stroked at her daughter's hair and gave her a warm smile. Her voice was soft and tender. "Oh, I know that, Sweetheart. You've been ass over tit for that man since he was all big ears and leather." She looked toward the Doctor. "Wasn't happy about that, me," she growled. "Prancing into our lives all clever and makin' grand promises of giving her all time and space and a lifetime of travellin' about."

The Doctor merely chuckled at Jackie as he settled Rose's ankles into a pair of stirrups at the end of the gurney.

"You weren't even a looker," Jackie continued haughtily. "Well. Not for a young girl like my Rose, anyway. Looked double her age, you did."

"Oh, I am definitely a few more centuries above being double…"

"Don't play smart with me," she interrupted with a snap and a smile. "I know that now, you plum. You bring _robbing the cradle_ to a whole new level."

"Oh God Mum," Rose moaned with embarrassment. "Could you please just stop?"

The Doctor petted Rose on the knee and gave her a wink. "Your mother's merely trying to keep your mind distracted, Rose. Don't pay her too much mind. I'm not in any way offended, and neither should you be." He shifted his hands downward to the edge of the sheet with the intention of drawing it upward to examine her.

Rose immediately squeaked with embarrassment and slammed her hand down on the sheet between her knees to hold it in place. Her eyes were wide and slightly horrified, and she looked at the Doctor who stood at the end of the gurney, in between her knees, and wore a perplexed look on his face.

She licked at her lips and slowed thickly with obvious embarrassment. "What're you doin'?"

He blinked rapidly at her question with the very slightest of shakes in his head, and then pointed toward where her hands held at the sheet. "I need to examine you, Rose. Please let go of the sheet."

She bit her lips together and shook her head. She could only hum out her negative to his request.

His head tipped to one side and the look that crossed his handsome face could only be described as a look of condescension. "Now, Rose…"

"You can't," she whimpered. "I … I barely even _know_ you, and you want me to give you my permission to let you …" she jutted out her chin toward the junction between her thighs. "You know."

"You're currently in labour with _my_ child," he deadpanned with a weary look on his face. "I'm fairly certain that this current situation you've found yourself in would indicate that I've already been down there at least once…" He let up a shrill yelp at a strike on his upper arm by Jackie's closed fist. He coughed with disbelief as he rubbed his hand on the sore spot. "What was _that_ for?"

"For bein' crude," she shot back with exaggerated disgust. "That's my little girl you're smooth talkin there' and I don't much appreciate…"

" _Smooth talkin'_?" he repeated incredulously. "Do you think that _that_ was _smooth talking_?" He straightened up and adjusted his cravat much like he would have adjusted a tie. "I'll have you know, Jackie, that this incarnation of mine was gifted with a golden tongue and…"

"I don't need to be knowin' about that neither," Jackie blasted out.

The Doctor's eyes widened. " _If_ , I was to be smooth talking Rose," he continued darkly with obvious effort to ignore Jackie's last comment, "then you'd certainly know it. More than that, you'd probably be affected by my debonair as much as my intended target of affection."

"Oh," she huffed out. "There you are, all thinkin' you're so impressive."

"That's because I am."

Rose looked between the both of them with a look of pure and utter disbelief. "Please tell me you're not actually having this argument," she gasped out as a contraction began to take hold. One eye closed and the other narrowed as she winced her way through it. "Not that I want to be selfish and make this all about me or anything, but I am about to squeeze a baby out and would really like at least a little bit of your focus to help me get through this."

Jackie quickly raced around to Rose's side. She immediately took hold of her daughter's hand inside both of hers and kissed at her fingertips. "Oh, Sweetheart. I'm sorry. It's just I'm worried for you right now, and you know how I get when I'm workin' myself up over you."

"I know mum," she ground out through gritted teeth as she leaned her head against her mothers. "I'm right scared, too. But you're my mum, you're supposed to be the strong one, yeah?"

"You just wait until your little girl's hurtin'," she said with a crack of emotion in her voice. "See how strong you'll be then."

The Doctor watched them both with a light crease of fascination in his brow. In all of his travels across the universe, he'd gotten to see the varying kinds of attachments between parents and their children. Familial unit dynamic differed greatly between species, but most parents had some levels of protectiveness toward their offspring.

Humans had an incredibly unique relationship with their offspring. Their species had no telepathic bond to bind them together, yet they had incredibly intense familial bonds between family members. Even in species where telepathy was what drove the entire planet, the Doctor had not seen such fierce devotion. Thus was especially true within his own species, where family members were indifferent at best to each other. Alliances and loyalty was given as a verbal oath, never as an instinctual drive.

If he was to be completely honest, then he'd have to admit that he didn't completely understand it. He had never felt a mother's attentive love, nor the strict love of a father, nor even the sometimes mean and aggressive love of a rivalled sibling.

…No. All he'd experienced since the moment he was loomed inside the heart of Lungbarrow, all he'd experienced from his family were laughs, jeers, taunting. Only two of his fourty-four cousins would ever give him a kind word, and even then, when the crunch came down, they'd been amongst the first to cast him aside.

That didn't mean that it was something he had no desire to participate in. Quite the opposite, really. He hungered for it. There was a reason that he frequently travelled with Human companions. There was a reason that he falsely claimed to be half human on his mother's side… Because he wanted to love, and be loved in return.

Humans were so good at love and devotion. Their dedication and loyalty extended way beyond the blood lineage of family groups. Humans could openly welcome a complete stranger – even one of a completely different species – into their family home and hold him or her to them with the same fierceness that they would their own children.

…And if Jackie's attempts at mothering him were of any indication, he had become one of those "adopted" family members.

The thought of that almost made him want to cry. What had he done, and how had he been so lucky to have found himself a whole new family who quite possibly held more affection for him than any of his lost family on Gallifrey?

"Doctor?" Rose's voice called lightly with a slight hint of worry. "Are you cryin'?"

He quickly wiped at his eye and took a look at the tips of his fingers that now glistened under the overhead lighting of the med bay. He frowned slightly in embarrassment and shook his head.

"Indeed not, my dear girl," he called back with a slight croak in his voice that he covered with a hard clear of his throat. "Dust. That's all. Residual dust from the TARDIS redecorating." He coughed into his fist and looked toward Rose with his brows arched high for her to read that cough as confirmation of his explanation. "See?"

"Right," she sang breathlessly with a slight writhe in her back as she battled for comfort on the bed.

He leaned his forearm across one of her knees and looked between the part of her legs toward her flushed and sweated face. "Now. Are you ready to let me take a look and see where we are with the progression of your labour?"

She peeped and shook her head. "Not really. No." She swallowed thickly and looked toward her mother, and then back to him. "Can you maybe do it without … you know … without looking?"

He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of her request. "You want me to examine you without _looking_ at what I'm examining?"

"Uh-huh," she answered breathily through an open mouth.

His brows twitched together slightly. "Do me a favour, my precious girl, and think back on my question. Please take a moment to consider it carefully and then perhaps you may understand the absurdity of your request."

Jackie snorted at him. "Don't you go bein' all snarky, Mister." She stroked lovingly at Rose's sweaty hair. "Our little sweetheart is goin' through something scary and painful, her brain's not really in full function right now."

"My brain's fine," Rose argued indignantly. "My dignity on the other hand, is in danger of bein' hit."

Jackie burst out a peal of laughter that rang throughout the entire room. "Oh, Sweetheart," she sang with brilliant glee. "You're havin' a baby. Whatever dignity you think you 'ave …" She let herself laugh again. "You'll 'ave none of it left by the time that baby of yours gets here."

~~oooOOOooo~~

"Okay, Rose," The Doctor coached excitedly with his eyes locked on the thoroughly exhausted face of Rose Tyler. "I think one more push and we'll get to meet our little girl!"

She panted exhaustedly and shook her head. "I can't," she whimpered. "No more, Doctor. Please. I can't do it anymore."

"Yes you can," he assured her with a wide smile and a pet on her knee with his soiled latex gloves. "You've been so brilliant to this point, only another minute or so to go. I know you can do it."

And, oh, hadn't she been brilliant? It had been twelve hours since she'd fearfully mentioned to him that she thought her waters had broken. Twelve hours where he just knew that she'd been experiencing exhausting and crippling pain, and yet this incredible woman had handled it brilliantly. Aside from her cries of pain during the most intense of contractions, she had barely complained about the torture she was enduring. She seemed far more concerned about her mother's wellbeing and even the TARDIS' handling of the cries of a labouring woman than she was focused on her own pain.

He'd never seen such bravery in the face of such agony before. Oh, he knew that birthings like this happened multiple times a day across the planet known to his people as Sol III. Rose's birth would quite likely be considered an extremely easy delivery, with everything progressing along fantastically without any medical intervention required to assist. But that made it no more awe-inspiring to him. As far as he was concerned, Rose Tyler was a marvel. A wonder of the universe all wrapped up in a package of pink and yellow. A little package of pink and yellow that loved him; loved him so much that she was willing to go through all of this agony and through each separate indignity that childbirth afforded her.

The biggest marvel of it all is that she did it all … for him. For him!

By Rassilon. If his older self didn't completely and utterly worship this incredible creature, then he would take her hand and run across the universe with her himself – timelines be damned.

His hands shook slightly with the emotion behind his thoughts and of the surprising depth by which he felt them. Rose Tyler was giving him back something that he had thought was lost to him forever. She could never understand just how profound this all was to him. She couldn't possibly understand that in the past ten months – and moreso in the last twelve hours – that she wasn't only giving life to a miracle child, but she was also giving life to a man who thought he had none of it left to even live for.

"Okay."

He snapped himself from his reverie and focused on her pale and clammy face shrouded in stringy, sweated hair and smudged makeup.

"You're ready?" he whispered tenderly.

She nodded frantically. "I need this to be over, Doctor. I can't." She panted and swallowed over a dry tongue. "I can't do this anymore."

"You're doing great," Jackie assured her in a voice cracking with emotion and hoarse from endless talking. "I'm so proud of you, Sweetheart."

The Doctor watched Rose's expression soften and her head tilt to one side to press temple to temple against her mother's head and gave them both a warm smile. "Whenever you're ready, Rose," he said on a loud whisper as he dropped his eyes low and focused on the whispy tufts of dark hair that graced the head of the precious child still held inside her mother. "Just her shoulders to go."

Rose inhaled deeply and let out a fierce long cry that thundered throughout the entire TARDI. Her body contracted forward and she put every ounce of her remaining energy into that last push.

"That's it, my precious girl," the Doctor cheered as he held the head of his daughter in his hands and worked to support both her and her mother as she made her entrance into the universe. He held his breath as she emerged, one shoulder at a time, to finally slide out fully with a single movement up along the part between the Doctor's arms, toward his chest, but not quite meeting it.

Everything in his universe slowed at that very moment in time as he felt the slippery warmth of a newborn child slide into his waiting hold. She emerged as a tight little bundle with folded arms and legs and the slightest cone shape in her head from her time spent waiting in the tunnel between her mother's womb and the world outside. She held that form as though tucked safely inside an invisible cocoon in wait for the moment to emerge into the world as a magnificent butterfly.

The Doctor looked down at the quiet little package in his arms and said the first thing that came to his mind: "Hello darling. Welcome to the world."

The little one suddenly drew in a deep breath through an open mouth and let her father bear witness to the single most amazing thing he'd ever seen in his eight centuries of life.

The tight hold of her little body in the shape she'd held inside the womb for the last several months finally released. Her chest expanded and her face and eyes opened up to him. Her rigid little arms and legs unfolded and extended in a way that the Doctor could only equate to the unfolding of a butterfly's wings.

Within a beat of one of his hearts, this tiny little package had unfolded in front of his eyes. A tight little slimy wad of pink and brown that was now his little girl. His daughter, who looked up at him with unfocused newborn blue eyes and a tiny little mouth parted into a tiny little pink rhomboid shape.

"There's no scream," Rose panted suddenly. "Doctor. She's not screamin'. They're supposed to scream, aren't they?"

He looked up at her with eyes so full of hot salty tears that he didn't need to blink to set them free. They quickly cursed down his cheeks. "Oh. Rose…"

"My God," she breathed with panic. "Doctor. Is she. Is she okay?"

He nodded in reply. It was all that he felt capable of in that moment. His chin quivered as he tried valiantly to say something – anything – to assure Rose that the squirming little bundle laid out along his arms was simply perfect. "She," he croaked out after a swallow. "Rose, she's beautiful."

"Please," she begged with a squirming of her own to try and seat herself up high enough to look at her daughter. "Let me see?"

The Doctor looked down to his infant in question of just how he was going to be able to manage to safely shift her across to her mother, and found his eyes lock on her little face and that little angled pair of lips that were still parted as she took in her first breaths. That adorable little pouty rhomboid mouth very quickly stretched wide open and let out a wailing demand for instant swaddling.

"Oh Sweetheart," Jackie cooed to either him or the baby (he couldn't immediately tell) as she moved from Rose's side and grabbed a small flannel blanket from the bedside table. "You're in a state, aren't you?"

The Doctor looked up at her with as much helplessness as the infant in his arms. "I don't quite know how…"

"S'alright, love. I've got you," she assured him as she deftly reached in to simultaneously lift the child and swaddle her at the same time. She pressed a kiss against his own sweated temple as she drew the infant up into her arms.

"You did great," she whispered into his ear. "I'm as proud of you as I am of her."

Her words caused him to hiccup to cover up an involuntary sob. He looked toward Rose with an expression of utter defeat and shook his head at her with his mouth parted slightly as though gaping and not finding the words needed to put sound to his thoughts.

"You okay, Doctor?" she asked breathlessly with a grunt as she leaned forward to smooth out his hair. All she managed to do with her limited reach, however, was to scratch her fingernails in his hair.

He looked down and nodded rapidly. "Yes, Rose. I'm okay." He lifted his head again and gave her a smile that looked far more forced than it actually was. He was fighting against the ache in his throat from holding back his emotion, and the battle was clear across his features. "I'm honestly the happiest man in the entire universe right now."

"So your eyes," she teased tiredly with a flick of her finger in a gesture toward his cheek. "Is that just dust again?"

He let a smile stretch across his cheeks and took her hand in his. "No, Rose. This time…" He blinked and a pair of tears fell from his eyes. "This time I'm crying."

She gave him her own smile, as stained with tears as his was. "You know what, Doctor? Me too." She shuffled forward just slightly. "And you know what else?"

"What's that?" he asked with a croak in his voice.

"I love you."

He took her hand in his and smoothed his latex-covered thumb across her knuckles. "It's a good thing that," he replied with a tender voice.

There was apprehension and hope in her voice. "Why's that?"

He lifted his eyes and locked them on hers. "Because, Rose Tyler. I…"


	7. Decisions

A/N: Wow to the amazing reaction to my last chapter. Thank you and thank you!

This chapter is more of the same, really. Sappy. So very Sappy. Serious amounts of absolute mindless sentimental fluff that is so horrendously saccharine that I should offer insulin shots. (and Rose isn't even a part of it!) I honestly don't know how this will be accepted ... it's OOC, but at the same time I don't completely believe it would be. A man who has just lost everything and faces losing more ... there are things that he's going to fiercely clutch onto and never want to let go of.

But I will totally understand if people come out of this chapter with a shake in their head and a groan of disgust. I make no apologies at all.

Hopefully the next chapter takes us back to Ten and Rose ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

In his many centuries of traveling through all space and time, the Doctor had seen many wondrous sights that simply took his breath away. He'd been witness to the birth of new star systems and constellations; had watched the brilliant final gasping breaths of dying stars give way to new galaxies. He'd sat in the doors of his TARDIS as she hovered in the deepest depths of space with his legs dangling over the edge and gazed with wonder at the magnificent colours that rippled through the darkness of open space.

He'd sat atop the glass dome of the Citadel on Gallifrey and let his eyes wander across the majestic landscape of his home.

Beauty. He'd seen it all. Well. At least he thought he had. For all of the wonders that the universe had gifted him with, none came close to the magnificence that lay before him right now. The two precious creatures that lay together on the expansive King-sized bed in his room with their matching brows, button noses, perfectly pouty lips and long black lashes forming angelic dark crescent shapes under their eyes … oh, well they needed to be held above the universe as a whole to be revered and worshipped by any and all creatures below.

Never before – in all of his lives – had he seen anything that brought such wonder and awe out of him…

"Now there's a man in love if ever I saw one," Jackie cooed gently from beside him. She smiled the loving grin of a parent toward the bed. "Beautiful, aren't they?"

Although he wasn't expecting her presence, the Doctor wasn't particularly startled to hear her voice. Part of him expected her to show up at some point or another to check on her daughter and new grand daughter. How could she not? Although he intended on taking a moment to himself in order to shower and change out of his tea-stained clothing, he found himself unable to walk away from the two precious girls who had managed to become the single most important things in his life.

"They take after me, you know," Jackie continued with a tease in her voice.

He blinked rapidly to shake himself from his thoughts and looked down at her with a crease in his brow. "Pardon me?"

Jackie rolled her eyes, but kept her smile firmly pasted onto her face. "How gorgeous the both of them are," she clarified with mirth. "It's a Prentice trait, you know. All of the women along my line have been gorgeous."

"And you included, I would expect," he answered without thinking too much about it.

Immediately there were two arms curled around his left arm and a blonde head on his shoulder. His eyes widened and his breath drew in hard, but he wisely chose to say nothing.

Jackie on the other hand …

"Well aren't you just the smoothest little peach in the basket," she sang out joyously. "Know how to get into your mother-in-law's good graces, don't you?" Her arms tightened around his and she drew his attention with a downward tug on that arm. "You _are_ going to marry her, aren't you, Doctor?"

"Well…"

"Because I can't be handin' my daughter off to you and never seein' her again if you can't promise me that she's gonna be looked after." Her voice cracked just a little with emotions she was obviously trying to hold back. "Promise me that, Doctor. Promise me you'll be there and never let 'er down."

It was at this point that the Doctor noticed the lines and dark circles on Jackie Tyler's face. She had obviously taken the time to reapply her make-up once Rose and the little baby had settled down and fallen asleep, but the application was hurried at best. Even through the thin films of her foundation and powder, he could read her emotion as though they were words in a book.

"I'm sorry," he vowed almost under his own breath. He twisted to cup his hand on the side of her head and drew his thumb along her temple in a request for her to look up at him. When he saw her reddening eyes look up into his, he offered her an apologetic smile. "I am so sorry."

Jackie didn't release his arm from her hold. She tightened her grip. "What you sorry about?" she questioned worriedly. "You are goin' to look after her, yeah?"

His thumb stilled, but he maintained contact with her, holding her gaze within the tractor beams of his own blue-grey eyes.

"Ever since I took Susan's hand and stole a TARDIS from Gallifrey to begin my travels across the universe, I've never really looked back." He paused waiting for her to interrupt in some way – perhaps to enquire as to just _who_ this _Susan_ was – but found her to be remarkably silent. He trailed his thumb against her temple once again and inhaled a deep breath to continue. "I've taken many companions with me over the years. Some of them came with me voluntarily, some even stowed away, and some of them ended up on my TARDIS by pure accident."

Jackie laughed softly. "You mean you kidnapped 'em."

He smiled widely. "Oh, some have accused me of that, Jackie Tyler, never you mind." His smile faltered and his features softened. "I wouldn't ever force anyone to travel with me," he assured her. "If they want to leave then I will make every effort to get them back to their proper place in time and back home."

"I'm really hopin' that you have a point here, Doctor," she breathed with warning. "Because you're beginning to frighten me a little here."

He nodded slightly. "I do in a vague way," he admitted. "What I suppose I'm trying to get at is that I've always taken the hand of someone brilliant who wants to see all of space and time without a thought or a care as to how their absence just might affect someone they'd left behind."

He looked toward Rose, still asleep in his bed with their sleeping infant at her side, and let out an emotion-heavy breath. "It never occurred to me that there might be someone left behind that is probably absolutely shattered that their loved one has disappeared without a trace." His head tipped to one side and he drew in another deep breath. "Until today, that is."

Jackie's hold on his arm tightened further and she tugged down once more to get his attention. "What're you sayin', Sweetheart?" she asked worriedly.

He looked down at her with a soft and incredibly tender smile on his face. "Until _this_ moment," he answered on a voice barely louder than a whisper, "Until I held my infant daughter in my arms and heard her holler out for the first time, I never understood just what kind of pain the parents of any of my companions must've felt when I took them away."

"It's painful," Jackie agreed on a whisper. "Wonderin' just what mischief the two of you have gotten into this time and whether or not I'm ever gonna see my little girl ever again." He looked toward Rose on the med and dropped her head onto the Doctor's shoulder. "But there comes a time when you have'ta let go and let them fly off on their own. We don't like it, of course, but everyone has to leave home someday."

"None quite as literally as your Rose," he replied with a smile.

She didn't lift her head from his shoulder. She couldn't even bring herself to look at him. She kept her eyes on her sleeping daughter instead. "You can't leave her here." She felt his breath hitch and then hold inside his chest. "I know you think that she needs us all, and that you don't mean as much to her as the rest of us do, but we know differently, Sweetheart." She bit at her own breath to stop herself from succumbing to her emotion and then released it as a huff to draw in another more shallow breath. "Rose loves you and she needs you. And you might'n believe it now, 'cause you've just met and all, but you need her too."

"I don't think it matters if we've just met or not, Jackie," he offered quietly. "I already know just how much I need her and little Arkytior in my life."

"Arkytior?"

He smiled wistfully. "Do you like it? It means _Rose_ on my planet." He inhaled deeply. "I was hoping to discuss the potential of naming our daughter Arkytior once Rose wakes."

"I like Jacqueline much better," Jackie answered back with a stuffed-nose laugh. She felt the Doctor relax in her hold and bumped her hip against his. "Oh I'm just having you on, ya plum. Arkytior is a beautiful name that has good meanin' to it, and if that's what you want to call her, then I say you do it." She chuckled. "As long as you don't go callin' her some alien name that's full of clicks and snorts and whistles and inhuman screaming sounds, then you've got my vote." She grimaced just lightly. "Oh, and if'n you have her learning a language like that…"

The Doctor had to laugh at that. There were, for sure, plenty of civilizations across the universe that had languages that contained one, and some of them all, of the sounds that Jackie had described. But not his. Definitely not his.

To ease her worries, the Doctor spoke a long phrase of assurances inside his own language of lightly lilting lyrical sounds and melody. He felt the way she held her breath deeply inside her chest as he spoke against her hair, and lowered his mouth to speak softly against her ear.

Rather than exhaling her held breath when he stopped talking, Jackie drew in a deeper breath. She spoke with a strained voice when she finally responded to him. "Jus' what did you say to me, Doctor?" She exhaled her remaining breath and found the energy to narrow her eyes at him. "And it had better not be you giving me curry about bein' a lowlife ape or anything like that."

That made him laugh. He shook his head as he pulled a respectful distance away from her. "What I just said to you, Jackie, was my vow to always honour and worship the gifts that you're giving me in your daughter and granddaughter."

"Oh now," she snuffled in reply against her thumb as she finally freed him of her hold. "Now you're sweet talkin' me, Doctor." She grinned around her slightly reddening cheeks. "I'm not buyin' what you're sellin', though. I happen to be a happily married woman, thank you."

He didn't look at her, choosing to focus on Rose and their daughter on the bed, but he smiled and stood a little prouder. "I told you you'd be affected by it if I decided to use my golden tongue…" He yelped out playfully when Jackie slapped him hard on the shoulder with the back of her hand. "Oh, you are a violent one, aren't you?"

Her eyes were moist and her building tears threatened to spill out her eyes at any moment, but she smiled. "When you press the right buttons I am. Let that be a warning to you, Doctor. You hurt my little girl, and I will find you. Wall or no wall, I will break down all the barriers to find you and give you a right thumpin'."

His face didn't break with the amusement she expected, instead his expression remained somewhat neutral as he stared at his new family. Before she could let him know that she was only kidding around, his voice slid smoothly in the sudden quiet.

"Would it make your vengeance any easier if you had no barriers at all to break through in the first place?"

Jackie's brows crashed into each other with the speed by which her confusion fell upon her. Her face fell into a grimace of perplexity rather shortly after that. "What did you say?"

His eyes didn't move from the bed and his expression remained closed. "Come with us, Jackie," he offered with a rather firm tone of voice. "Let me take you and your husband back across to the prime universe. We can set the two of you up anywhere that you want to stay.:

Her hands flew rather indelicately to settle her fingertips over her gasping mouth. "Oh, Sweetheart…"

He continued with forced calm. "That way there's never going to have to be any _goodbyes_. Rose, Arkytior and I can visit you any time."

Jackie sniffed hard. "Are you sure that the Sonic the Hedgehog version of you will agree to that?"

This time he finally did break his focus on the bed. He looked toward Jackie with a look of utter indignation. "Sonic the _what_?" he blustered incredulously. "Oh, please don't tell me I spike my hair, pull on a pair of plimsoles and run like lightning with a manic laugh and bouncy energy."

Jackie's face stretched in consideration of that. "Add a brown pinstripe suit to the ensemble and I reckon you've nailed your future self." Her eyes then widened. "Oh, and don't go tellin' me that I somehow inspired that outfit by tellin' you this. The good Lord knows I can certainly offer up a few more decent options than that if'n ya want."

He looked her up and down with a single brow arched high on his head. "Somehow, my dear, I doubt that."

She slapped his arm again with the back of her hand. "You got me on my slouch day, yeah?"

He gave her a wink and looked back to the bed, letting his eyes graze over the curvaceous form of a woman still recovering from the birth of a child. Memories of the labor of this magnificent woman to gift him with a child flooded his mind. He felt momentarily weakened at the knees with the flood of emotions that threatened to engulf him whole.

"I can't imagine," he began somewhat brokenly. "Ever having to say goodbye to either of them, Jackie. I know I have to, but I also know that I'll have them in my arms again quite soon, and when I expect I'm going to need them the most." He turned his head toward Jackie. "If I take them from you now, you'll probably never see them again." His mouth flapped and gaped as he fought to maintain his voice. "I can't do that to you, Jackie. I just. I can't."

He lifted his eyes to look at the tiny infant wrapped up in a pink flannel blanket sleeping soundly beside her mother. "When I look at her; my daughter…" His mouth flagged again. "No parent should ever have to say goodbye to their child."

His eyes flicked toward Jackie. Flared wide with terror striking through them. "I'm a father, Jackie. Me! I have a tiny little daughter and… and …"

"Breathe, Sweetheart," Jackie cooed gently. "It's okay. You've been blindsided by this, I know. It's scary."

"No," he breathed out along a very long exhale. He looked back to his tiny family. "That's not scary. I'll tell you what's truly frightening. I've just run away from a war, Jackie. A war where I've watched everything I've ever known disintegrate around me. My life. My home. My family. All of it's gone and I'm here left alone. Noone left to run to and hide with."

"You've got us now, Sweetheart," Jackie assured him. "Rose, Arkytior, Me, Pete, Mickey. You've got us, and we've got you."

He turned to her with eyes flared with excitement. "What's scary about that?" he asked incredulously. "How can I be terrified to have all … well … all _this_? This, Jackie. _This_ is a reason for me to go back to Gallifrey and continue to fight. Rose and Arkytior … I have to keep the universe safe if only for the two of them." He took hold of her arms and held her firmly in front of him. His eyes were wide and almost manic; his voice full of thrill and excitement. "Please come back with us. I'll stay here as long as you need me to to make sure that you have everything you need ready to board my TARDIS. No more goodbyes, Jackie. No more!" He pulled his hands from her arms and skip-stepped into an excited circle. "We'll have many many _until we meet agains_. Oh, we'll always _Just be a phone call away._ When she needs you, you'll be there, and when you need us …" he stopped pacing and turned to her with an expression of firm promise. "When you need us, then Rose and me will tear apart the universe to make sure that we're there for you too."

He strode forward with unnatural speed and slid his hand over her cheek. "So say you will. Don't make Rose have to make the choice between her mother and the man she loves…"

"Because I know who she'll choose,' Jackie said sadly.

The Doctor chose not to agree not disagree with her at all. Instead he looked back to Rose on the bed and smiled a wistful smile. "Speak with Pete and let me know what the both of you decide. I won't mention it to Rose until we know for sure what decision you make."

"I've already made mine," Jackie said with a sniff. "And if Pete knows what's good for 'im, then he's goin' to agree with me."

The Doctor let a toothy grin stretch slowly across his face. "In the half-day I've known you, Jackie, I know that there's no way that I'd ever argue with you."

"You used to though, Doctor," she said with a widening of her eyes and a puff of air in her cheeks. "Oh, how you used to grate on my nerves and you did it deliberate, mind." She slid a dark look toward him. "You were a right mean and gruff man when I firs' met ya. Couldn't get a polite word out of you."

"And then I changed into Sonic the Hedgehog and that all changed?"

Jackie shook her head. "Oh, I swear you get more rude as you get older. Still nothing polite from you, which is a laugh when you lord yourself around with all your Time Lord airs and graces and superiority over all others."

He leaned down sideways and offered her a charmind smile. "Then allow me to allow you to change that opinion of me."

"You still regenerate into a rude sod with all the manners of a wet dish cloth." She circled her finger at him. "You can play the charmin' handsome gentleman now all you want. I know what you become next."

He looked up to the ceiling and blew out a very long and exaggerated breath of disappointment. "And so there goes my chances of winning your favour and hoping that one day you'll truly accept me into your family." He pouted out his bottom lip like a chastised child and huffed with feigned disappointment. "And here I was hoping that one day maybe you might be able to take in this weary old Time Lord and call him your son."

"Oh, c'mere," Jackie cooed softly as she opened her arms and wriggled her fingers to invite him into a hug. When he didn't move, she walked toward him and cupped her hands either side of his head. She looked into his eyes and then rolled up onto her toes to press her lips against the crease in the centre of his brow. His hands met lightly with her waist as though to support her if she struggled, and Jackie rolled back down from her toes and looked him again in his eye. "Sweetheart," she said to him softly. "I already do."

His mouth gaped, but he said nothing.

Jackie gave him a wink and petted him on the shoulders before walking around him toward the doorway. "Like it or not, Sweetheart. You're all mine."

She then pointed to the ensuite at the side of the room. "Now go take a shower. You smell like stale tea and are as sticky as a fly's foot after walking through jam. I'm not havin' my little girls being crowded by a smelly old git who's refusing to take a shower."

"Oh, okay," he breathed; startled. "But…"

"Now, Doctor," she warned as she waked through the door. "And I'm timing you to make sure you're not fakin' it. I've seen what lads are like when they're told to take a bath. Damn well take the effort to wet everything to pretend they've showered, but too lazy to actually get in there and get clean."

"Who on this planet – or any other – would go to such lengths?" he blustered with honest surprise.

"If your next one's a boy, you just wait and see." She pointed again at the bathroom. "Now chop chop. Off you go."

He slumped and groaned out a long moan. "I'm eight hundred and…"

"Now," she demanded with a grin. She then walked to the door and disappeared around the corner. After a moment, she popped her head back around the door. "Changed your mind yet, Darlin'? Still want a _mother_ hanging about and crowding your life."

She laughed loudly as she disappeared down the long corridor that would take her to the console room of the TARDIS. The Doctor looked at the empty doorway with a smile on his face and maybe a tear in his eye.

"Yes, Jackie," he whispered to himself as he followed her orders and wandered toward the bathroom. "I still want it…"


	8. Bubbling Brooks

A/N: Well. This chapter ran away from me ... I had to use several reins to try and pull it back in! Didn't succeed in that too well.

This is another slightly mushy chapter ... but more going back to the Doctor's youth and just how his stoic and loveless upbringing makes him crave it so passionately now... And I hope ... HOPE ... that I was able to make clear just why he seemed so opposed to it all as Nine and Ten...

Hope is a wonderful thing to have ... HAHAHA!

I wanted to kinda slip in a little bit about the compatibility of Gallifreyans and Humans. It's a niggling question I have in fanfic, actually. It's quite often stated that there is zero compatibility between the two species - and always so sternly stated by the Doctor to be that way ... yet it's canon that not only did Susan had babies with her Human husband, but Leela also conceived and took to term a son with her gallifreyan husband Andred ... Oh, it doesn't stop me reading and enjoying said fics, of course .. I sinceriously love anything when written believably ... but I always wondered why it's such a common belief across fanfiction that there is no compatibility there, when it's canon that it is...

But, hey .. what is fanfiction if we don't blow through canon, yeah? That's half the fun of it!

Anyway. I hope you enjoy this chapter in some way ... a little bit maybe ... Next chapter it's time to go back home to Ten ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The fascinated gurgling of a young infant trying to blow bubbles with her own saliva called Rose Tyler from her silent musing. For almost an hour, she'd stood silently in a small alcove of bushes that overlooked the quietly bubbling brook that ran along the left side of the Tyler-estate property line just enjoying the silence of her infant finally asleep after nearly ninety minutes of uncontrollable wailing.

One hour of exhausted sleep seemed to be just enough for her tiny time tot, apparently.

Rose dipped her fingertip into the warm pink flannel and wiped the little saliva bubbles from her daughter's lips. As she drew up her finger and looked at the slimy tip with an expression of disgust, little Arkytior erupted into a bubbling giggle that seemed to bounce off each one of the damp bricks that surrounded them.

Rose gave her a playful look of admonishment. "Oh, so you're going to be one of those, are ya? Constantly trying to gross out your mum and then laughing like a dribbling little loon whenever it works?"

Arkytior replied with a gurgle, another bubble, and then a giggle. She held up her chubby little hands and looked to her mother with wide blue-grey eyes and an equally wide "O" in her little mouth.

"Such an articulate way of talking you have there young lady," Rose replied with a smile as she plucked a pink and white dummy off the top of the pram and then popped it into her daughter's waiting and eager little mouth.

"Now," she began as she pressed both of her forearms on the handle bar of the pram and leaned down to address her little girl. "If your dad was here right now, he'd probably excitedly inform me that all the droolin' gurglin' and bubble blowin' you just did there actually mean's something quite profound on Fafreth 3 or Cleestea out in the Nopiliv system."

Arkytior smiled around the pacifier and let up a little squeal of excitement. Underneath her pink flannel blanket, her socked feet kicked happily.

"And with that little kick-y dance you did there. On Sketaria," Rose continued with a chuckle. "You just declared war on Jelly Babies or somethin'."

Arkytior's face stilled and her wide eyes locked on the fluttering of a brilliantly coloured dragonfly that hovered just over Rose's shoulder. She made a squeal of curiosity as she lifted her hand and curled her little fingers into a ball to point a chubby little finger at it. She gurgled an indecipherable question of gurgles around her dummy and flicked her eyes back to her mother.

Rose smiled with reverence in her eyes at the tiny little inquisitive bundle wrapped in pink. "Oh, c'mere you squishy little thing, she cooed as she leaned over the handle bar of the pram and drew her tiny little girl up into her arms. She sighed a sigh of utter contentment and bounced lightly to settle her daughter comfortably against her chest. She ignored the warmth of the drool that leaked around the dummy and looked across the rippling waters of the brook that had become her place of quiet solitude over the past several months.

It was a quaint little area of quiet that Rose had come to rely on in the months since arriving in this parallel. A small little piece of privacy that life inside a sprawling mansion couldn't provide her. Between a fussing mother continually asking about her mental wellbeing, a father who was cluelessly struggling to get to know a daughter he'd only just learned about, and an entire army of servant staff, Rose had very little alone time to be able to process and work through the trauma of Canary Wharf and the loss of the man she thought she'd spend the rest of her forever with.

This tiny little alcove nestled beyond an unkempt semi-circle of thicket out of sight of the mansion afforded her the uninterrupted solace she needed when the din inside her home simply became too much. Even her cellphone had no reception in this tiny little haven. It was a blind spot to the rest of the estate that had become her little secret.

Noone would ever find her here.

Noone.

"Did you know, Rose, that the flavours of strawberries and bananas in this universe are switched from the flavours back on prime?"

Okay. Noone but _the Doctor_ would ever find her here.

"Oh," he continued with honest surprise as he stepped up behind her and dropped his chin on her shoulder to look out across the brook. He slid his arms around her waist and spoke against her ear in a voice that was flat, yet intrigued. "And your swans are _blue_."

Rose looked down at her infant now sleeping soundlessly against her breast and then tipped her head to the side to address the Doctor even though she couldn't see him standing behind her. She kept her voice slightly muted so as not to wake little Arkytior.

"You've been here almost three months now, Doctor," she began softly. "And just how many…?"

"One hundred and thirty two remarkable and quite obvious differences between this universe and prime," he answered with a bright chirpiness to his tone before Rose could finish the question. "Thirty three if you really want to count the switch in the flavour of the bananas and strawberries as separate discoveries. I count them as one, myself, considering it is a direct switch in flavouring."

Rose smiled and leaned her head back against his chest to look out across the brook. " _Only_ one hundred and thirty two?"

"I'm still looking," he assured her eagerly. It was clear that he was ready to bounce back and begin and excited spin-pace-dance movement by the way the tension in his arms around her waist seemed to pulse or ripple between holding her and letting her go.

Rose opted to give him his leave with a chuckle and a gesture of her chin toward the blue swan. "That's not a swan."

All movement within him immediately ceased as inquisitive curiosity took hold of the Doctor. He hummed out inquisitively and pressed in closer against her back to be able to take a better look at the _swan_. "What is it?" he queried cautiously.

She twisted her head lightly to chuckle against his cheek. "You mean the impressive, all knowing Lord of Time doesn't _know_?"

His mouth was slightly agape and he watched her as she gently laid their sleeping infant back into her pram. "Is that really such a shock to you?"

Rose looked to her baby with an affectionate smile, but answered his question with a soft voice that was _almost_ distracted. "I thought you knew everything."

He barked out a single laugh of utter distain. "If I've ever told you _that_ , my precious girl, then I've been telling lies." He remained behind her and drew his hands up and down her arms. "I pride myself more on the things I don't know that the myriad of things that I do."

That made Rose spit out laughter that may have been slightly facetous. "Oh yeah. Right."

The Doctor spun her around in his arms to look into her eyes. His expression was one of innocence to her hideous accusation. "I can assure you, Rose, that – as a naturally curious individual who absolutely loves a good mystery – if there was to ever come a day where I discovered that I know everything and have nothing else left to learn, then it's over for me. What would be the point?"

The inner corners of Rose's eyes pinched. Her eyebrows followed shortly thereafter as he eyes lifted to look away from his. "What'd you do to your hair?"

His eyes and their tightly held focus quickly relaxed so that they widened just slightly. "That is a very abrupt change in topic," he ventured with a flick in one brow.

"It's short," she continued with a perplexed look on her face. With cautious movements, she lifted her hand to press her fingers against the freshly cropped side of his head.

His eyes widened and he let out a rather shocked peep. "Short?!"

"Well," she sang out with a smile. "Not so much _short_ as it is _shorter_." She smoothed her hands along his ear and let one of the curls of his fringe wrap around her finger. "You still have your gorgeous curls." She gently took a fistful of his hair and tugged lightly. "There's more than enough length for me to do this," she purred as she pulled him down firmly for a kiss.

Any surprise or shock he had within him quickly melted away and he hummed in contentment against her mouth as she released his lips with a sucking pop.

"Well. As long as you can still do that," he drawled out. "That's good. It's important, you see. Very important that you can do that and we can do this, and …" He dipped his head to interrupt his own sentence with a kiss against her deliciously plump lower lip. When she quickly reciprocated with a nibble at his lip, the Doctor whimpered out a sound of defeat and snapped his arms tightly around her waist.

His name flew past her lips with a gasp when he straightened his back to draw her feet up off the ground. She kicked them helplessly, her toes scuffing at the tops of his shoes. The Doctor immediately took advantage of her gasping helplessness and latched his mouth onto the softest part of her throat.

"Doctor," she moaned as much as whined as she battled to get his attention. "Seriously. You have to tell me what happened."

"What happened when?" he muttered in a gravelled voice against her skin.

"Your hair," she clarified. "What happened to it?"

He very quickly abandoned his ministrations against her throat and looked up at her with an expression of absolute and utter disbelief. He didn't release his hold on her waist in hopes that he just might be given the opportunity to continue where he'd left off once he was able to express his incredulous disbelief at her current distraction.

"Really, Rose?" He managed with a growl in his voice. "Are there not more pressing matters at hand than whether or not I allowed your mother to cut my hair."

Her entire expression lengthened into silent shock and she wriggled herself free of his hold. She whimpered as she wriggled to free herself until eventually the Doctor released her. She got her footing fairly swiftly and staggered back just slightly to lever him a suspicious look.

"I don't think there is any single matter more pressing to me that what you just said," she declared with wide eyes.

He took a moment to look confused. He lifted his eyes and considered his last statement, and then lowered them and looked at her with his head cocked curiously to one side. "I don't see just what is so pressing about me telling you that I let your mother cut my hair."

She quickly lifted a finger and circled it in the air at him in a suspicious point. "Go back over that statement, Doctor," she advised him on a low voice. "Go back over it and tell me what is so wrong about what you just said."

All he could do was offer her a blank stare.

"Three hundred and sixty six," she muttered under her breath as she shook her head and turned toward her sleeping child. She merely sighed as she curled her finger around the ring of the pacifier in Arkytior's mouth and popped it free from her mouth. She tutted with a light smile as Arkytior's little lips pursed upward in search of the little teat. "That's a lot," she cooed in a quiet baby-talk voice toward her sleeping child. "Isn't it?"

Arkytior's little sleeping face contorted into a wince of annoyance that warned she was about to open her eyes and start wailing, and the Doctor was immediately there – over Rose's shoulder – to pop the dummy back in between her tiny pink lips.

"I think we need a few more moments of quiet," he offered tenderly as he turned Rose once again in his arms so that she was facing him again. Rather than setting his hands on her shoulders in a supportive gesture, he curled his arms around her waist and tugged her slightly close to him.

"Three hundred and sixty six whats?" he asked softly.

She kept her head tilted to one side to avoid his gaze. "Changes," she answered with a sigh. "Between here and there."

He shifted his head to try to move into her line of sight, but found her being particularly evasive. His brows tightened together and he made do with pulling her closer, setting his chin on top of her head and letting out a sigh.

"You make it sound like none of them are particularly good."

She relaxed against his chest and shook her head lightly. "Some of them are, some aren't." She inhaled shakily. "Some are just really difficult to wrap my head around – and that scares me a bit."

"Why's that?" he asked with the same softness in his voice that she was using.

"Because it doesn't feel real," she admitted in a voice so softly that it was barely audible. Her arms tightened around him and she turned her face to that her nose was buried against his chest. "And I want it to be real, Doctor. I really do. I don't know if I would survive it if you told me that you were just the parallel version of you and not my Doctor from home."

He stiffened just slightly as he took in her words. His breath drew in deeply to speak, but he was stopped from saying anything as she continued to talk a muffled admittance against his shirt.

"It scares me to think that you're going to take me to a version of you that doesn't have any memories of who we ever were together because we never were never together to begin with."

Well. It was a justified fear he supposed. She didn't really understand enough about parallel worlds and alternate universes to understand that there existed no parallel versions of the Time Lords and the constellation of Kasterborous that was the centre from which all universes ultimately collided.

With a gentle sigh he guided her head from the valley between his pecs and lifted her chin to look up at him with the crook of his finger.

"Rose," he began with as little condescension as was possible. "I am _not_ a parallel version of the Doctor."

"How can you be sure of that?"

"Because there is no alternate Gallifrey for alternate Time Lords to exist," he assured her with a smile. "And if there's no alternate reality with my people swanning about the universe in TARDISes, then there isn't an alternate me." He dropped his hand from her chin to curl it around her back. "I'm one of thirteen faces." He opened his mouth wide to ask for quiet when he saw her readying to argue. "Thirteen faces that exist in only one parallel universe."

"How can you be so sure?"

He chuckled and offered her a wink. "My sweet darling girl. My people _invented_ parallel worlds."

She struggled to step back from him and gasped out a sound of incredulity. "Oh, don't be so daft."

He held her firm. "It was a thesis study done, oh, done way back in the early beginnings of Time Lord Society," he said huskily. "Nemilusirass, I believe. Did the study based on theories of Rassilon regarding the Universe and it's origins…."

She slapped him somewhat playfully on the chest and groaned out loud. "Oh pull the other one, Doctor. Your people might've been the self-proclaimed _Masters of the Universe_ , but they certainly weren't actually responsible for the creation of any of it."

He chuckled through his nose. "You believe in your Gods, I'll believe in mine…"

"Are you into Scientology as well?"

The Doctor's expression didn't change much. He simply shrugged. "If only because an Academy friend of mine is the one it's all based on." He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Last time I went out drinking with Zedefendrick on a whim, let me tell you. Brilliant Lord, Zed, don't get me wrong, but he is perhaps the most vile of pranksters."

He finally pulled back from Rose and stepped around her to look across the brook toward the blue swan-like-creature. He scratched at his newly cropped hair with his nails. "Zed thought it would be a lark to find himself a science fiction writer, ply him with some good Gallifreyan ale, use a bit of hypnotic persuasion, and fill his mind with incredible tales of Gods who were spacemen…"

Rose dropped her forehead into her palm and groaned.

The Doctor continued speaking. "Zed and I passed out at some point in the evening and lost sight of our crazy new friend. Next thing you know we're nursing hangovers in the lecture hall while listening to the professor lecture on the religions of Sol III and the rather odd belief in a God in a spaceship."

Rose had to chuckle. "Mental," she managed in between laughs. "Every conversation with you ends up completely mental."

He let his eyes slide toward her and winked. "But you still love me enough to bear me an infant child." His brows pinched and he looked across the brook again. "Or that you loved the Sonic the Hedgehog version of me, anyway." He looked at her again. "According to your mother, anyway."

"She still callin' him that?"

He turned to face her fully. He opened his arms in presentation of himself. "Do I _really_ end up looking like a maniacal hedgehog?"

"With a gob to match, yes."

His arms dropped and he let out a long sigh. "And here I was thinking that I finally had a handle on the not regenerating into a criminal of the fashion world." He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and gave a petulant huff. "Just lovely."

"Are you absolutely sure that you're not a parallel him?"

He heard the waver in her voice and winced a little at her continued fear. He inhaled deeply to consider her words and then nodded his head. "Trust me, Rose. I am the man who fell in love with you – I believe three times now – and fathered our frankly magnificent little girl." He cast a reverent look toward his sleeping child and touched a finger to her little temple.

"Then why're you so different?" she asked with worry creeping back into her voice. She held up her hand when he turned quickly to face her to ward off his inevitable argument. "I know that when you regenerate, that you change. Not just in body, but in personality. You look really, really different, and you can be night and day from your last body, but fundamentally you're the same man."

"By Rassilon," he breathed passionately, ready to make a vow so profound that there was no way she'd be in any way ready to hear it.

Fortunately she didn't have to.

"Leather you and hedgehog you couldn't've been more different," she continued with a smile. "Leather you was all gruff and grumpy and ready to list each and every part of any species that made them primitive and inferior to Time Lords. Hedgehog you was all about how beautiful every species was and how _brilliant_ each of them was in their own right."

"If you'll forgive my reference," he began with a curl in his lip. "I'm going to side with Hedgehog me on that assessment."

"But when it came down to it," Rose continued without acknowledging his interruption. "They were both the same man. Both hurtin' inside because of all his losses in the war."

The Doctor whimpered just slightly.

"And so scared to believe in love and hope again that you wouldn't reach out and hold what was right in front of you."

"I find that rather hard to believe," he argued with an indignant wave of his hand. "When I consider the fact that I fathered a child with you."

Rose shrugged. "I could tell you that it was a one-time affair that happened strictly in the heat of the moment after you saved me from having my face sucked off by a…"

"Oh I don't think so," he snapped back with legitimate anger in his tone. "Time Lords – and especially me – do not swan about the universe fathering illegitimate children with just any woman." His brows pinched. "Please tell me that it wasn't just the one time and was born of fear."

She shook her head. "No. It wasn't." She cleared her throat. "So. Can Time Lords procreate with all species, then?"

That was an abrupt twist in subject, and one that caught him slightly off guard and almost gave him the hiccups. "Excuse me, what?"

"Time Lords," Rose continued. "Are you compatible with and can make babies with all species?"

He scratched at his hair and blew out a breath through pursed lips. "Well. Not with our own species, apparently." He shrugged. "Pythian curse. Long story. Ask me to share it with you over tea in the library when I return you to me." He cleared his throat. "Procreation outside of our species? Well. Yes. In fact. We are quite compatible with Humans." He winced and bobbed his head a little. "That's a pairing I've seen more than once. My Grand Daughter Susan had children with a human. My former companion Leela married and had a son with a Gallifreyan. Andred was his name. Good man. Smart fellow…." His voice trailed off.

"Any other pairings that you know about?"

He flicked his eyes to hers and then shook his head. "No. It really is a matter of…" He stopped and looked at her with an incredulous expression. "Why would you even ask that, Rose? Are you suggesting that I'm not wholly committed to you?"

"You never let me know either way," she said softly. "The only time you were ever hushed was when we were makin' love. Couldn't get your gob to stop if it would save the world," she said with a shake in her head. "But when you were moving inside me, you wouldn't say a word. You'd stare at me like I was gonna vanish if you blinked, but you never said anything." She whimpered. "Until you and me made love a couple of weeks ago, Doctor, I'd never even heard you say you loved me."

He took a step toward her, but kept his hands in his pockets. "Did you ever believe that I didn't; love you, that is?"

"I've always believed it," she admitted softly. "That you loved me as much as I love you."

"Then continue to do so," he assured her with a smile. "Because how I feel for you now is only going to grow and become something so much more profound with each body I regenerate into." He slid his fingers into her hair and cupped the side of her face. "I can't imagine not being in love with you." His eyes flicked up toward the mansion. "Loving the way I am mothered by Jackie. The way I am surrounded by affection of a family that I wasn't woven into; that weren't forced to vow allegiance to a mutant child of a broken loom…"

"Doctor?" she queried worriedly as she pressed her hand against his chest. "What're you talking about? Mutant? Loom? I don't get it."

He circled her hand with his and held they hands between his hearts. "Your family _chose_ me, Rose. Do you understand just how monumental that is to me? My family back on Gallifrey, they rejected me the moment I was woven from the family loom." He drew in a shaking breath. "Can you imagine being born into the presence of fourty four cousins all laughing and sneering, taunting me with tasteless nicknames like _wormhole_ and _snail_."

She stepped in closer to him, pressing her chest against their joined hands. "Oh, Doctor. I'm so sorry."

He shook free of her and roughly drew up his shirt from his trousers to point at his navel – a perfect little divot surrounded by the finest chestnut hair. "And you know why, Rose. Because of _that_. Because I have one of these."

"A belly button?"

"A belly button," he ground out. "The lineage of perfection of the loomlings of Lungbarrow out to an end by this – a tiny little imperfection." He held up his shirt and looked down at it himself with a deep sigh. "This tiny little thing is pretty much the entire reason I had no one on Gallifrey, Rose."

She ran her fingertips over the shallow divot in his abdomen, smiling when it tightened under her touch. "I love your belly button," she sang sweetly. Her eyes lifted and she regarded him with inquisitively doubtful eyes. "Although I don't know that I'll completely buy that this is the sole reason that you didn't get along with the family."

"They truly are that petty, Rose."

"Yeah?"

He huffed. "Okay, that's not _the only thing_ , but it was certainly the nexus from which all points of disappointment converged."

"Well," she sang around a smile. "It's a good thing that we humans happen to love belly buttons." She touched her tongue to her teeth in a smile and leaned into him. Her wide eyes lifted to look up into his face with an expression of absolute adoration. "We'll love you: belly button or no. You're my alien and I'm never lettin' you go again."

He looked down at her with an expression that shared sorrow with happiness. "I'm not going anywhere, Rose," he vowed fiercely. "I was rejected by those who should've taken a scared and naked child from the loom, to nurture and protect. Instead I was slapped so hard that I could barely walk, and then forced to suffer the taunts and teasing of those who were supposed to protect me."

"They rejected me, Rose," he continued. "But you. Your family. You took a man who isn't even the same species as you and made him one of yours. You, your mum, your dad. You _love_ me, and I can't even begin to understand why or how you can."

"We love you because you _are_ family, Doctor," she assured him. She snorted out a chuckle though her nose. "Of course you're the first you that's truly come to accept and embrace it." She frowned. "Which I don't get, because if you're the younger you, then the older yous would know that we love you like this, yeah? And if you do, then why did you always do whatever you could to reject it or play it off like you hated every last stinking minute of the _domestics_." She looked up into his perplexed expression. "Complained about it, you did. Didn't want to hang out with mum. Made fun of her, even."

"I…"

"For a man claiming to want a family who loves him unconditionally, you certainly did your best to make out like the very idea of it was disgusting."

He thought on that for a moment in silence as Rose continued to talk.

"You've been here with us now for nearly three months, Doctor. Three months of no TARDIS travel, of eating my mum's cooking, listening to her rabbit on…" she looked up at him with a look of pure disbelief. "You even sat with her and watched East Enders, Doctor! Even better, you _discussed episodes and spoilers_ with her!"

"I quite happen like that show," he admitted indignantly. "And if the future me denies it then he's all lies, isn't he?"

"You let. _My Mother_. Cut. Your. Hair." She ran her hand up and down his physique. "Next thing she'll have you changin' your clothes, too."

"Well on that front," he defended dryly, "I really had no choice. She walked up to me with a stern look and a pair of very sharp looking scissors. Once she began the lecture of wild hair that was quite clearly dehydrated and damaged by the ravages of the war on Gallifrey and how when I go back I should look like a soldier and not a damned mad scientist in a velvet frock…."

"Neither of the last yous would've tolerated it for a second,' Rose countered. "Not the motherin', not the family dinners, not the ramblin' and tea on the patio. No East Enders." She inhaled hard. "Other yous would turn tail into the TARDIS and run as far across the universe as possible to escape."

He tipped his head to one side, but remained fairly silent.

Rose didn't. "You wonder why I'm questioning who you are. There you go. You want all this: Mum, dad, house and a baby…"

"A wife,' he added tenderly as he drew his fingertips down her cheek. "A family of my own. One built by love, not misguided responsibility."

She held onto the hand that still touched at her face and leaned her cheek against it. Her eyes remained on his. "Which is nothing close to what you want when you're in your next few incarnations."

"I can't ever imagine not wanting this."

She chuckled and looked down at his hand as she removed it from her cheek and held it to her chest. "Trust me, Doctor. You don't want _any_ of this."

"I promise you that I do."

She didn't look up. Instead she kept her head low and brought his hand up underneath her chin. "Right now, you do." She exhaled long and drew in a deep breath, holding it a moment before speaking. "In the future…."

He didn't like the way she left that open. He didn't like that he'd somehow in the future made her believe that he didn't want what she was giving him now. It was inconceivable.

Then it hit him. He didn't know whether to grin like a loon or grimace with sympathy at his future incarnation's pain. He made do with smiling weakly and lifting her head with the hand she held underneath it.

"Look at me, Rose," he urged her with a whisper. "Please."

She swallowed thickly and lifted her eyes to his. A slow blink was the only form of reply she could offer him.

"I think you've misinterpreted it all," he offered with a one-sided smirk. "Misinterpreted how I feel, who I am, and just what I truly want, and…" He inhaled shakily. "And how having to preserve the timelines makes me behave."

Her brows pinched tightly together into a grimace of confusion. "What're you gettin' at?"

"Have you ever considered that my apparent distain against the love and domestics offered by your family aren't because I didn't want it," he began with a rush in his voice. "But because I wanted it too much?"

She was almost breathless with her confusion. "What?"

"I'd already had to give you up once," he stated quietly. "And then I was facing losing you and our unborn daughter – which I refuse to believe that I didn't know about – just putting that out there." He sniffed indignantly. "And so, because of that knowledge I couldn't embrace all this like I wanted to. The only way to save my hearts from the coming heartbreak, I had to reject it all."

Both her hands flew to cover her mouth. Her eyes were wide and horrified. "Oh no…"

"I know exactly what it's like to be loved by you and your family Rose," he said softly as he removed her hands from her mouth and brought them to his chest. "I will also know how it hurts to give that up. To know that I'll lose it all again for some indefinite amount of time until you can all be brought back to me so that we can begin again…"

Tears leaked from her eyes as she imagined the scenario offered by the Doctor and the pains he must have felt as he had to give up the familial relationship he had grown to crave, and then regenerate to find himself back at the start and having to fumble through finding it all again only to know it would be lost to him again in such a short amount of time. Her own heart ached inside her chest and she launched forward to throw her arms around his neck.

"Doctor. I'm so. I'm so sorry."

He smiled as he rubbed her back and revelled in the heat of her small body folded around his. "Don't be, Rose," he assured her. "Because I know I won't be. When we're all together again, all this ... all of it … it'll be so worth it."

She whimpered against his chest and held him tighter. "That doesn't make it any easier, though."

"I have something to fight for," he whispered huskily against her ear. "Something to look forward to. I can't wait to regenerate, Rose. I can't wait to become big ears and leather and meet you again – for the first time."

She nestled against his chest, her ear against his two beating hearts and let out a long sigh. This was the end of her painful journey, and yet it was the very beginning of his. She wanted to scream out with joy at being reunited with her Doctor, but at the same time she wanted to shatter at the losses he was about to face and then the long journey he had beyond that to finally find his happiness.

One word in his little speech suddenly stood out to her. He'd said _when we're_ all _together again._ Not just her, Arkytior and the Doctor, but _all_ of them." She pulled back slightly and looked up at him with curious eyes.

"Doctor. When you say that we will _all_ be together again…?"

He tipped his head to one side in question, and then beamed when he finally worked out what she was asking him.

"Oh," he half shouted with excitement. "Rose. Did I forget to tell you…?"


	9. Ready for Home

A/N: Just a small chapter as I flex my fingers and retrain myself in getting back to the flow of this story and finish it...

I think I'm good now ... I think I am... I sinceriously hope you like this little snippet. It's fluffy, I know ... But he needs a little bit before he heads off back to the Time War...

~~oooOOOooo~~

It was the bopping bounce of her cellphone's text alert that drew Rose Tyler out from slumber. The phone danced across the side table with a rough hum that seemed to rattle through the table, along the floor, up the legs of the bed, through the mattress, into the pillow, and then ultimately into her head like a bit of a jack hammer. She whimpered just slightly as she turned her face into the pillow and made a clumsy attempt to swat at the cruel electronic device that was definitely much more morning friendly than she was.

One swat. Two. And then three failed flailing attempts to locate the evasive device to hurl it against the nearest wall, and Rose's whimpers turned into a series of very pained and defeated moans.

"Oh why don't you just sod off and let me sleep, you frustratin' and annoyin' piece of useless technology," she growled as she flipped onto her back and covered her eyes with her forearm. "S'too early."

"Actually, Rose Tyler. As it is activating a wake up alarm at your request, I believe that's it is very useful, don't you?" the Doctor purred with amusement at a location in the room she couldn't immediately identify.

She didn't remove her arm from it's now very comfortable seat across both eyes and the bridge of her nose. "I didn't request anything of the sort."

Rose heard him chuckle an untranslated comment toward their daughter as the infant was placed gently at her side. The mattress then dipped with his movements across the bed, and Rose knew that he was crawling across the bed to either take up position at her side or hover over her like he had taken to doing when she refused to get out of bed.

She felt the firmness of his thighs settle against hers and then the press of his hands either side of her shoulders, and Rose knew he was opting to _hover_. The mental imagery of his blue eyes lit with cheeky glints and the matching boyish smile made her smile. Her breath hitched to feel him lower himself down onto his elbows and shift his lips to within capturing distance of hers.

"If I do recall correctly, my darling girl. You did, indeed, set the alarm last evening as you hoped to watch your last sunrise here inside this parallel before I take you all home today."

She could feel the press of his forehead against her forearm, and the light nudges to encourage her to move it, but steadfastly held her arm firm. "I take it I missed it?"

"You did," he breathed. "Oh, about four curses and three violent tosses of your phone across the room ago."

She shrugged and inhaled a deep sigh that took in his exhale. She wouldn't even consider it whimsical to believe that she could feel the essence of time herself shift between his lips and hers.

"Sunsets are overrated, anyway."

There was a giggle and the sound of bubbling to the right of her and she felt the Doctor's forehead leave her arm to look across at the little girl.

"Do you hear her, Arkytior?" he asked in a gentle, yet indignant voice. "Sunsets are _overrated_. Well. I certainly disagree with that, don't you? So, it looks as though you and I should prove her wrong on that front, shouldn't we, darling? How does a trip to venusia-prime, where the plains are permenently shielded under the shadows of the mountain ranges that surround them?"

Arkytior giggled and squealed with delight. Rose quickly removed her arms from her eyes to look up at him.

"What does that have to do with sunrises, Doctor?"

"Plenty," he sang with a grin as he quickly pushed himself up and rocked back on his knees to sit on his heels. "The shadows cast by the mountains are made from the low sun peeking through the horizon." He held his hand out to her in an offer to assist her to sit up. He let out a small and happy giggle from the back of his throat when she accepted his offer. "The location of their northern-most landmass is at the pole, and the orbit of the planet puts the sun in a permanent state of sunrise. It actually circles around the mountain range rather than travelling across the sky in an east-west movement across the skies overhead."

Rose's eyes widened with interest. Her lips pursed in contemplation as she tried to imagine the dance of shadows across the land as the sun circled around. "That. That sounds wonderful."

"It is," he confirmed tenderly. "For the entire day – which is always, as there is no _night time_ on the continent of Rahasia – the inhabitants are gifted with a permanent display of brilliant colours from a perpetual sunrise." He smiled wistfully. "It's like they exist in a brilliant and everlasting life of rebirth and regeneration."

"It must confuse the flora and fauna then," Rose commented quietly with her eyes wide with question. "I mean with no night time, how can they tell when it's time to sleep, or to feed?"

"One both sleeps and eats when they feel they need to, my precious girl."

"Yeah," she breathed out as sleep finally fell away completely to be replaced by curiosity and question. "But that means having to always rely on the biological clock, and isn't that set by the rise and fall of the sun?"

He grinned and kissed the knuckles of her right hand. "My clever girl. You are right, of course." He captured her smug smile with his lips in a chaste and chuckling kiss. "That works, of course, on any species who lives on a planet with definite day/night phases. The inhabitants of Rahasia have adapted and evolved to use different methods of _setting the biological clock –_ if you are not opposed to me using your words."

Rose let out a sound of understanding and flopped back into her pillows. "Kind've like the people that live here near the northern poles, yeah? Like Alaska and parts of Canada where they get six months of day or night depending on the season." She angled her chin to look past her nose at him. "Guess they have to get it worked out on their own, too. I suppose I debunked my own personal little theory there, didn't I?"

"Hypothesis," he corrected gently, "and, no. There are some species where your ideas are proven and sound theories. So you aren't completely debunking your own brilliance."

"You think I'm brilliant?"

He winked at her. "Brilliant is a sorely inadequate descriptor for how I feel about you, Rose. I happen think that you are magnificent."

She purred deep inside her chest. "Why, Doctor. Are you trying to get into my knickers?"

"Do I have to _try_?"

She sat up quickly to thump him playfully on the shoulder, "Oh you aren't half sure of yourself, aren't you?"

The Doctor groaned pathetically and rubbed at his shoulder. "Well I can say that I'm not entirely sure of my prowess to woo you right at this juncture in time."

Rose let out a moan to see the Doctor mumble and moan his _agony_ like a wounded beast in the jungle, and rolled onto her side to flop her feet on the floor and climb out of the bed. "Kate is less of a baby than you are." She looked down to the giggling and cooing infant rocking side to side on the bed next to the Doctor and smiled affectionately toward her. "And she actually _is_ a baby."

The Doctor waggled a brow as he leaned forward to pull Arkytior up against his chest and climb off the bed. He passed Rose and pressed his lips against her temple. His breath was hot against her skin. "I do recall you referring to me by that name last evening." He stepped by her and spoke over his shoulder with a definite smirk in his voice. "But you also called me the name of your deity within quite a passionate litany of language quite like I've never heard out of a pair of lips so delicious…"

Rose's eyes blew wide as she inhaled a deep breath of remembrance. She said nothing as she pressed her fingertips to her lips and watched the swagger in his hips as he carried their child out of the room.

"Now, Rose Tyler. The TARDIS is ready to leave as soon as you've showered and collected your things. Do be a dear and move quickly. There exists a rather finite amount of time – at any _given_ time – that I can tolerate listening to our mother prattle on about how I had better not send us all into a sun or some such nonsense." There was a clear and tender drop in his tone of voice that suggested he'd begun to talk to their daughter. "As if I'd do that, right, my precious little Kerfluffiedaw? Oh! Have I explained to you, yet just what a Kerfluffiedaw is, my precious child?"

"Hangonaminute," Rose breathed to herself as she walked quickly to the door to call out to the Doctor in the hallway. He was already on his way downstairs and so she leaned over the balcony. "Doctor!"

He looked up with a smile. "Yes, Rose?"

"Did you just refer to my mum as _our_ mum?"

"I think I must might have done something to that effect, my love." He gave her a wink and a light laugh and looked down to where Arkytior was drooling against his lapel. "But we're never going to tell your grandma Jackie about that, are we, Fluffiedaw? Oh, no, we won't. Because then she might do something like kiss me or something, and we don't want that now, do we?" He looked back up to Rose and gestured toward the bathroom with a just of his chin. "Now come on, Rose. Shower and get ready. The portal I had opened to breach the parallel walls is set to close very soon. We shouldn't waste much more time."

The Doctor held his tiny daughter to his chest and waited until he'd heard the bathroom door close before he pressed his lips to Arkytior's soft downy head and breathed out a ragged and pained breath.

"There's a broken Time Lord waiting for his wife and child. As much as I don't want to do it, my sweet girl, I have to take you and your mother home."

Arkytior giggled and purred as she gnawed on her fist against his chest. She didn't feel the gentle tears of her father that trickled down atop her head.

"I'm not ready yet."


	10. romanadvoratrelundar

A/N: There's some quite mushy stuff in this chapter, and I make no apology for it at all. If you don't like touchy-feely-scenes of mush and drivel, then walk away right now ... Other than that... enjoy!

Next Chapter we reunite to long lost lovers...

~~oooOOOooo~~

To Rose Tyler, it really didn't seem to matter just how many changes the Doctor went through every time he regenerated. One thing that seemed to remain constant throughout all those she had ever met was the excited and seemingly uncoordinated dance that happened around the main console every time the TARDIS was in flight. She was quite used to the exuberant dance of the Doctor, and of his excited babble as he input his coordinates and looked up at the Time Rotor Column to discuss the intended flight plan with his beloved ship.

What she found unusual about their current trip, and his current dance around the opulent console – aside from the opulence that was his current console room – was that he performed this ritualistic dance wearing a baby strapped to his chest. Arkytior had her back nestled up against his chest and squealed with delight at the array of brightly coloured flashing lights that danced across the console with as much energy as her father danced around it.

Every once in a while, when his dance paused for just long enough to stop the bouncing, he dropped a kiss to her downy little curls.

"Are you enjoying this, little Kerfluffiedaw?" the Doctor asked her tenderly as he gently swatted her curious and soggy hands from touching a lever. "Do you want daddy to teach you how to fly our magnificent timeship?"

Jackie clucked with disapproval as she approached from his left; from a pair of antique chairs across the main console room where she'd been sharing a pot of tea with Pete. She held her arms out expectantly.

"This bipping and bopping that you're doing is no good for my little grandchild," she chided him gently. "Pass over little Kate and let me care for her while you try not to pilot us into the sun."

The expression that crossed the Doctor's face as he held an arm across the belly of his giggling infant and took a rather long stride backward, was most definitely from the affronted category. He looked positively outraged that she would suggest such a thing.

"I will have you know, Jackie, that not only am I one of the most accomplished pilots of a TARDIS-" He stopped at a cough that may or may not have been an argument to that assertion from Rose.

Jackie was the one to make an actual translatable remark, however. "Oh really? Twelve months, Doctor!"

He flicked his eyes to Jackie, but leaned down toward Rose. He kept his voice very quiet. "What did I do in those _twelve months_ , Rose?"

"Piloting error," Rose answered simply. She gently brushed Arkytior's hand from reaching out for a lever. "Back when we first met."

He leaned down a little further, his eyes still locked on Jackie, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Did I bring you home a little after curfew, perhaps?"

Rose hummed in the affirmative. "About twelve months or so."

The Doctor gave a nod and straightened himself up. He licked at his lip, lightly swatted Arkytior's hands off the helmut actuator lever, and then cleared his throat. "Time travel is a complicated mastery…"

"You're a _Time Lord_ ," Jackie added quickly. Her arms were folded across her chest, she had a light-yet-indignant slouch in her hip and she tapped the toes of her foot on the ground. "And I'd reckon if you go about giving yourself pompous titles like that, then you'd know a thing or two about being _on time_." She sniffed a derisive inhale. " _Time Lord._ More like _Got-No-Concept-of-Time Lord._ "

"Mum!"

"Oh, don't go getting all techy with me, Madam," Jackie shot back with an actual smirk curling her upper lip. "You know as well as me that himself here is as time retarded as any man born on Earth."

"Before you think about calling offence on that," Pete called from his chair. "You can't exactly call her wrong on it. It's true. One hundred percent accurate, Doctor. And I'm pretty sure it's coded in the genes or something that if you're a bloke-"

"It would be a chromosomal anomaly," the Doctor corrected tiredly with a rub at his brows. "And one's tardiness or lack thereof is _not_ a genetically coded defect."

"Isnt' it then?" Jackie snapped. "Then you tell me why it's always the men that are always running outside their own schedule."

"Probably because they are avoiding a nagging female, I suspect," the Doctor huffed impatiently.

Jackie took a controlled step forward. "The only reason I'm not clippin' you for that comment, Doctor, is because you're holding my grandbaby." She held up her arms again. "Now please give me little Kate so you can concentrate on not piloting us into a sun or crash land us in a swamp or somethin'."

The Doctor held his child firmly against his chest and shook his head.

Jackie flicked her fingers. "You can hold her all you want them we're save on Earth, you plum."

"You don't understand," he began softly, brokenly. "This could be the last time that I-" His words cut abruptly as the entire console room pitched to one side and a long howl erupted from the central column.

"Doctor!" Rose cried out with shock. "What's happening?"

The Doctor was already back to his chaotic dance around the terminals. He flicked lever after lever and turned dial after dial. "Non-responsive," he growled angrily. "Not a single control is responding!"

"What does that mean?" Jackie yelped with far more fear in her voice than anger. "Are we crashin'?"

The Doctor shook his head and settled his whimpering child with a stroke of his hand across her hair. "Quite the opposite in fact," he declared with anger lacing his words. "We've been lassoed."

Rose gripped at the edge of the console and leaned forward in the hope of trying to decipher at least one thing on the expansive panel. "What does that mean, Doctor?"

"We've been captured," he said with a growl in his voice. It was a growl that shifted into a chuckle. "You think you have me, do you? Well I still have a trick or two up my sleeve…"

"What-'re you talkin about?" Rose asked with rising panic. "Who's got us? Can you get us free of their control?"

"Trying to free myself from specialists in TARDISes and temporal physics?" he grinned. "Piece of cake, really. I've been doing it for quite some time."

Pete appeared at his left; in between Jackie and the Doctor. "What can I do to help?" His voice was calm and controlled, the Torchwood President in all his glory. "Just who has us, Doctor?"

The Doctor let out a light huff and flicked his hand in a nonchalant manner. "Who has us?" he asked with a laugh. "Oh. Noone _has_ us, Pete. The Time Lords might think they have a capable tether on my ship, but between us, TARDIS and I can wriggle ourselves free." He petted the rotor column. "Won't we, Sweetheart?"

Rose caught her footing and held tight to the console edge. "The Time Lords? Why would they be trying to capture you, Doctor? What did you do?"

He stroked his hand down along Arkytior's arm. "Oh," he sang guiltily. "I may have evaded a rather specific order to remain on Gallifrey to fight in the Time War." He breathed out a breath as he worked his fingers across a small keyboard adorned with a series of glyphs that were obviously Gallifreyan. "The TARDIS and I broke free of the Transduction Barrier .." He inhaled. "Andin trying to escape Council reach, we fell into your parallel."

"And now that you're back in this universe," she breathed with realisation. "They're recalling the both of you."

"I have to go back to the war," he said brokenly.

Jackie whimpered softly from around Pete. "Oh. Sweetheart. I'm sorry."

He sniffed wetly and cleared his throat. "Don't be, Jackie." He chuckled at the headbutt he received on his chin from his daughter as she kicked and cooed against his chest. "I know now that I-" Again his words cut, only this time it was as a large monitor lowered quickly from the juncture of the towering structure above their heads and flickered noisily to life. "Oh. Really? And just who's calling me, now?"

The blonde-headed and child-like face of Gallifrey's Lord President Romanadvoratrelundar appeared on screen. …And she didn't look at all happy.

"Lord Doctor," she chided with all the authority she was never afforded when travelling within the TARDIS walls. "How have you been able to evade our monitors and prevent our council from being able to temporally tether your TARDIS and recall her back to Gallifrey?"

He gave the monitor his most innocent expression. "My dearest Romana."

"Don't you begin to attempt to try to wile your way around reprimand by being suave, Doctor," Romana growled darkly. "Your charms definitely don't work on me, regardless of how attractive your current incarnation. We are at war. All capsules have been recalled to Gallifrey and all citizens of Kasterborous have been called to arms to defend the universe against invasion by the Daleks."

He seemed nonplussed. "I'm aware of the current situation, thank you, Madam President."

"Then you will return to Gallifrey immediately." Her eyes dropped at the sound of gurgling and bubbling from the Doctor's chest. Her pallor blanched further. "What is that, Doctor?"

He heard the worry inside Romana's tone and smiled somewhat victoriously. Surely she was like all other females who went from Angry to cooing in less than a second in the presence of an infant. "This is little Arkytior," he beamed proudly as he wrapped the little girl's hands around the index finger of each hand and then bounced side to side in a little dance. "My daughter. Isn't she simply magnificent?"

Her delicate hands flew swiftly to cover her mouth with her fingers. "Oh please tell me that you're merely hoping to adopt that child and that you aren't her sire." When she received only a blink of his eyes at her question, Romana shook her head and let out a shaking breath. "Oh, Doctor. Her mother. Tell me. Is she Gallifreyan?"

"Human," he answered quickly as if it was a perfectly natural response to the question.

Romana slumped just lightly. Any authority she held fell with her slouch, and rather that being a proud and powerful Time Lady, she looked tired and drawn. "There are specific laws in place, Doctor. Laws that expressly prohibit the siring of children in a natural manner – whether your mate is Gallifreyan or not." She looked at him helplessly. "What were you thinking to allow this to happen?"

"I trust that I wasn't thinking," he offered with a shrug. He yipped when he received a slap on the shoulder from Rose.

"You're admitting that in front of my _mum_?"

Jackie moaned and shook her head. "Oh, Sweetheart. I'm fully aware of the lack of rational thought that a man has when he's-"

"Stop!" Rose yelped as she covered her ears with her hands. "There are things that I should never hear come out of my mum's mouth. That's on the list. High up on it!"

Romana cast her eyes toward Rose. Her look was one of curiosity and warmth when she returned her eyes to the Doctor. "Is this your mate?"

He gave her a nod and held onto the hands of his daughter. "She is, Romana. I care for her very deeply, both now and in my future, where I really need to get her."

Romana's eyes flared wide and her lips came together to form a small and perfect "O" shape. "Your daughter and your mate are from a future incarnation, then?"

"Three from now if I'm reading my timelines correctly," he answered softly.

"And you're together now for what reason?"

"We got trapped, ma'am," Rose answered for the Doctor in a voice of pleading. "There was an incident back on prime Earth. Me and the Doctor, when we fixed it, I was transported to another parallel, and he wasn't able to come through the walls." She swallowed thickly and looked toward the Doctor, lifting her hand to gently touch his shoulder. "This version of my Doctor, he fell into our dimension right when I needed him most…"

"When I needed _you_ most," he corrected softly, but with passion in his whisper. He cupped his hand around the back of her neck and drew her close to him. He pressed his forehead against hers and inhaled a deep breath of her, holding onto her scent for a long moment, only to let it out when he spoke again. "When I'd lost it all, and lost my will to continue to fight. I found you." He sniffed a shaking inhale. "I found Arkytior. I found Jackie and Pete. I found my reason to want to live and fight again."

Rose blinked tears free from her eyes and breathed out a wet and sorrowful laugh. "I love you, you daft alien."

"And I, Rose," he replied with equal break in his voice. "My hearts beat for you as well, my precious girl." He looked down into the blue eyes of a gurgling infant and touched lovingly at her cheek with his fingertip. "And you, as well, Kerfluffiedaw. My beautiful Arkytior."

Romana felt her heart break at the scene inside the TARDIS, but she also felt a glimmer of an emotion she'd all but lost almost a century ago when bit-by-bit her planet succumbed to the battle to save time.

Hope.

…And by the Gods it felt good.

"Your daughter and your mate," Romana began gently. "If they're from your future, then that means we – or at the very least, you - have a future."

"The Time War," he asked Rose softly. "I don't want to know how it ends or the toll it takes upon the universe in her entirety, but when we meet…?"

"When we meet, Doctor. The war is over," Rose clarified for him. "And you return to your life of travel throughout all time and space. Saving civilizations and planets…"

"And falling in love," he finished with a smile.

The TARDIS gave a shudder and what felt like a long sigh of relief as the tether from Gallifrey released its hold on the weary time ship. The Doctor immediately looked up to the screen with question across his face. "Romana?"

"I've released the recall on your TARDIS," she answered for him without having to hear the question. "You need to keep both your mate and your child as far from here as possible," she warned quietly. "I can't hold off the battle forces for too long, and they will notice that your TARDIS is evading the call much sooner than they would later." She smiled weakly. "I can only provide you with about an hour, maybe two, to get your family to a safe haven out of the timeline of this war. Do it, Doctor. Save them, because when they find you, you won't have a choice but to return to what's left Gallifrey. Don't make them passengers on that trip."

"Romana…"

She raised her hand to ask that he say nothing further. "Doctor. If there is one Gallifreyan child that can be protected from all this, let it be her." She smiled down at Arkytior, who was happily giggling in complete obliviousness to the dangers surrounding her. "Tell me. What is her full name?"

"Arkytior Alleliah Tyler," he answered in a lyrical voice that was almost musical to the ear.

"How appropriate," Romana sang softly. "And you, did you chose that name specifically, Doctor?"

"She's a gift to me from the universe," he said with a smile as his eyes filled and then spilled free of tears. "My sliver of hope, and the most precious and wonderful reason across all of time and space for me to fight … and to win." He nodded. "Yes. I was very deliberate in what I named her."

Rose stroked their daughter's hair and looked up to the Doctor. "What does it mean?"

Romana answered for the Doctor. She could see by his closed eyes and controlled breathing that he wouldn't be able to voice it himself.

"It really doesn't translate well into your language," she began gently. "If I tried, the meaning would be lost to you. But the closest adjective I can find is that she is his hope. A beacon across the darkest night, and his way back home."

"That's a lot of meaning in two words," Rose mused quietly to herself.

The Doctor's eyes opened and he looked down at her with a warm smile. "And yet our names run for a mile and offer no meaning at all."

"You're running out of time," Romana warned gently. She cleared her throat at wiped at her eyes. "If you don't mind, I think I'll take the name of your daughter and use that to find my own way through this."

"It'd be an honour," he offered with a bow that – surprisingly – lacked the typical facetiousness. "Romana. Thank you."

"An hour. Two," she warned again. "Beyond that I can't help you, Doctor."

"That will be sufficient time," he acquiesced with a firm nod of his head. "I'll return before the War Council realises that they've lost me again."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Without any further discussion or sentiment, Romana Disappeared from the monitor, and it went dark. Silence filled the cavernous command deck of the TARDIS broken only by the happy gurgle of an infant.

"Well," the Doctor finally spluttered when the silence became too much. "I guess that our trip to Venusia-prime will have to wait until I'm in my Eleventh Body."

Jackie touched her fingers to the Doctor's arm. "Sweetheart. Are you alright?"

"Me?" he asked with forced joviality. "Oh, Jackie. I'm _always_ alright."

"Except when you're not," Rose offered softly as she curled herself around his arm and pressed her forehead into his shoulder.

"I'll be fine, Rose," he promised her as he leaned forward to use a scroll wheel to doublecheck that the TARDIS was on a new course. "With you and Arkytior in my hearts, I'll always be fine."

"But –"

He touched his thumbtip and finger to her jaw. His lifted his brows and smiled in an attempt to draw her into smiling even just a little. "When I'm the man you need me to be, then younger me will bring you back home. And that, Rose, oh _that_ is something for me to look forward to."

The TARDIS shuddered around them and the rotor stopped cold and silent in the middle of the console room. For the briefest of moments, Rose believed that the TARDIS may have been caught again, but the look in the Doctor's eyes as he stared at the main entrance to the time ship told her that beyond all doubt they'd landed where her Doctor was waiting for them to come home.

At least she _hoped_ that he was waiting for them. "Where are we?" she queried softly.

"Woman's wept," he answered in a hoarse whisper. He sniffed sadly as he looked toward her, but he managed a smile. "You and Arkytior might want to pull on a coat. It gets pretty cold here."

"I know," Rose said with a smile. "You've brought me here before."

"I have?"

She nodded. "Here's where I promised you that I'd stay with you forever."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Donna Noble pulled on the lapel of her thick arctic jacket and looked across the cold and rocky landscape toward the lonely figure standing hopelessly alone underneath a towering wave of Ice. Once a week he brought her here; to this cold and desolate piece of the universe so that he could stand alone under the wave with his hands in his pockets and a posture of sorrow down along his back.

He never explained to her just what continually brought him here. Donna had asked him more than once just why this place was so important to him that he actively scheduled very time-specific visits here. The only answer he would ever give was a single word full of emotion.

 _Forever_

Donna could argue the Chrome off a towbar with this alien in order to get her way and stop with his barmy ideas and self-imposed rules or Time Lordery. She wasn't shy in doing so, either.

But when it came to this place and to the shift from happy puppy to solemn and lonely god, she let him be. Anything else could wait, she supposed. He'd lost so much in his long life, and she knew he was in considerable emotional agony that it felt like only one name could be a balm for. But she was no Rose Tyler. She wouldn't be able to actually pull him out of any self-imposed funk, so it was best to give him a bit of alone time to wallow in misery when he needed to.

Cause she'd seen what happened to him when he gave in and let those emotions win. Here. Here, he could battle them. She knew that for sure…

A whining and wheezing sound slowly drew in from behind her, starting as a shrill long distance cry and then materializing into a heavy lung dragging whine and wheeze that seemed to echo off the cliffs that surrounded her.

She spun quickly toward the sound and held her hand against her heart as though to calm it. For the briefest moment, she considered calling for the Doctor, but when a blue box identical to the one her Time Lord travelled in started to materialize only feet in front of her, she thought better of it.

"What in the bleedin' Hell?"

Her head tipped to one side and her eyes flared horrifically wide when the doors opened and a man wearing a baby stepped out onto the rocky terrain. He leaned back in to take the hand of a woman and cautioned her to watch her step as he led her outside the TARDIS.

The man lifted his head to look up ahead of him and smiled a warm and friendly grin toward her. "Well. Hello. And who might you be?"

Defensiveness kicked in pretty quickly, and Donna braced herself as she lifted her nose and gave him an indignant look. "Who are _you_?" She shot back.

He grinned and shifted the pink blanket that he held over the baby strapped to his chest. "I asked you first," he sang cheekily. "And as you don't remember me, I'm going to assume that you aren't the Doctor in female form."

Her eyes flashed wide. "Pardon me?"

Rose gasped. "You can change into a _girl_?"

"Well. Yes," he answered on a careful drawl. "If I truly _wanted_ to, which I absolutely do not because I have far too much respect for females to actually become one of them."

Donna shook her head with confusion. "What are you on about, and who are you?"

The Doctor grinned and stood tall. "I'm the Doctor. Can you please tell me where I might find myself in – oh – three hundred years into my future?"

"Wha?"

Rose shook her head and playfully punched the Doctor on the shoulder, chuckling when he moaned pathetically in pain. "You daft git. Knowin' you, you haven't explained to her regeneration yet, so she's got no idea what you're on about."

He rolled his eyes. "The topic never comes up until it becomes absolutely necessary."

"Change that, yeah?" Rose stepped up toward Donna and held out her hand in a friendly gesture of greeting. "I'm so sorry about him. The Doctor – no doubt you've already worked out – despite calling himself a Time Lord is anything but a refined kind of bloke."

"I take offence to that," he grumbled.

"Anyway," Rose continued. "I'm Rose. Rose Tyler, and I'm wondering if you can point out the Doctor to me." She held her hand up. "Hopefully right now he's about yay tall, wears a pinstrip suit with Chucks, has wild hair…"

"Hedgehog, I believe your mother describes it as," the Doctor said with a chuckle more toward his daughter, who had rolled her head enough that she was staring up at him with a wide open smile of thrill. "Yes, darling. Hedgehog. I become a humanoid hedgehog when I get older."

Rose chuckled and rolled her eyes. Before she could speak, however, Donna gasped in a breath and dipped to look Rose in the eyes. "You're Rose. Rose Tyler, as in the _Doctor's Rose Tyler_."

Rose smiled. "He mentioned me?"

Donne lifted her head and then pointed toward the frozen wave and to the solitary man standing underneath it. "Rose, he never _stops_ mentioning you."

Rose looked across the rocky terrain toward where her Doctor stood. She was vaguely aware of Donna introducing herself, and even absently whispered that she was happy to meet her, but her eyes were locked on the figure in a long coat standing off in the distance. She could see his guarded-yet-casual stance underneath the crystalline wave that towered over him. His hands were tucked deeply into his trouser pockets and his head was raised high to gaze at the colours of the very peak of the wave.

He was power. He was isolation. He was a man standing up against the largest beast, and he would never back down.

He was her Doctor.


	11. Remembering

A/N: Well. This chapter didn't want to end ... it kept going and going and going ... I had some stuff to get through before I could find a place to stop it. Still don't know if I pulled that off correctly.

Not quite sure how you'll take this chapter, but ... I wanted to try for some feels.

Thanks for all of your comments on this fic - it really gives me that push to keep at it! One more chapter to go and we are finished! Yay!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor looked along the barren landscape of white, blue and grey with a sense of sadness. Once upon a time this planet was teeming with a rainbow of colours from fauna dressed by the blazing twin suns that hung lazily in the skies overhead. The local fauna had adapted to the blistering heat of the day by becoming mostly nocturnal. Nights here were noisy and excitable, lit by bioluminescent mosses and flowers powered by the energy pulled from the suns.

Oh, how he'd enjoyed taking nightly walks along naturally worn paths lined with bell-like flowers that hung like streetlights to guide him safely toward the local townships. He loved to partake in the festivals that had become a nightly affair, rather than the twice a solar cycle that had been normal when he was still an academy lad. He'd enjoyed the jubilant and friendly company of the locals as he let his barefeet dig into the crystalline sands of the beaches. Thousands and thousands of miles of pristine white semi-transparent sands and clear purple waters…

…Gone now.

Gone, by what means? Was it the war that killed what was once such a magnificent Utopia of peace, harmony and beauty? Perhaps one day he might find the will to investigate how such a magnificent planet had ended up so cold and lifeless…

…How it finally fell to best represent what was once a gross misnomer given to it by the Lords of Time back when he was mere energy floating throughout the cosmos before the loom called him for birth.

One day, maybe. But not today. Today he had to deliver the universe's most wonderful gifts to the desolate Time Lord who stood alone and bereft underneath a gigantic frozen wave. And bereft he was. The Doctor could feel the agony and heartsbreak of the man. It had hit him like a freight train the moment he stepped out of the TARDIS doors and onto the icy path he had once skipped and danced on back when it was lush and green.

Walking into his elder self's agony could only be described as walking through a thick fog. It was a thick soup of telepathic misery that practically seized his throat shut. Sure, he found his voice easily enough when he had first stepped out of the TARDIS and quite-but-not-quite introduced himself to his elder self's current travelling companion. He'd even found himself capable of a little banter with Rose and a mini-dance with little Arkytior, who was out cold (oh do pardon the pun) against his chest.

When the red-headed woman (who was still withholding her name, for Rassilon's sake) had pointed out the lone figure down at the wave, the Doctor suddenly found himself unable to move, or to speak. Telepathic storm of misery aside, the desolation he could see in the posture of the man he was to become would've stopped him just as abruptly.

…And he found himself clutching much firmer the precious bundle that slept soundly against his chest.

He was drawn from his reverie by the gentle touch of Rose Tyler. Her fingers curled tenderly around his arm as she breathed out his name to get his attention.

He looked down at her with slowly clearing eyes.

"Yes, Rose?"

Rose tipped her head to one side in a gesture toward the Doctor at the wave. "Are you okay with me goin' down to see him?"

He lifted his hand to gently guide her wind-swept hair from her lip and curled it around her ear with his finger. "Will you allow me to visit with him first?" he questioned with a croak in his voice. "I want to have my time with him to express my concerns for my family before he realizes that you're here."

Rose licked at her lip. She looked longingly toward the wave, and then shifted her eyes back to him. "Do you think you'll lose the chance, then?"

Jackie thundered out a laugh from behind her. "Oh, please. Once himself catches sight of you, _madam_ , none of us will get a look in for at least the next century." She rolled her eyes. "I'll have three more grandbabies before he'll even think to say hello." She held up her finger to prevent an argument from her daughter. "And don't you go tellin' me that he's not like that. I know him. All brown hedgehog hair and rudeness, that one. You'll be in the TARDIS and out of here leaving the rest of us abandoned in an ice planet we should be callin' Canada." She looked to the Doctor and shook her head. "Oblivious he is, to anyone who isn't him and Rose."

The Doctor looked down at his chest. "And my little Kerfluffiedaw, of course."

Jackie narrowed her eyes. "Your ship showed me what a kerfluffiedaw is, Doctor."

He beamed. "Oh yes. A remarkable little creature, don't you think?"

Jackie's eyes narrowed. "It's a pig," she drawled blandly.

"A very _small_ pig," the Doctor scoffed.

"A pig with six legs, a horn on its head." She shook her head and pointed toward the sleeping infant. "It's a unicorn with a snout that snuffles about in the dirt. That is _not_ my grandbaby!" She held out her hands for her. "Now give her to me and go talk to yourself, then."

The Doctor wrapped both arms around his infant and turned himself away from her. "I know you well enough, Jackie Tyler, that if I hand over Arkytior to you then I'm not getting her back until the second cycle of the abrevian-hunters moon."

"An' if I didn't know _you_ better, Doctor, then I'd think you weren't hiding an insult in that _aren't I clever to know more than you about the universe_ words of yours."

He slowly unclipped the fastenings at his shoulder, keeping a close hold on his baby's bottom, as he looked helplessly toward Rose. "Will you take her for me?" She shot a dark look toward Jackie. "At least I know I'll get her back."

Jackie grinned with challenge. "Wanna bet me on that?"

"Oh mum," Rose muttered with a shake in her head. She held out her hands for her child. "Of course I'll take her, Doctor." She nuzzled her baby's head and exhaled in contentment as the Doctor secured their infant in her arms.

The Doctor kissed her forehead gently. He then lowered his head to press both of their foreheads together as he gazed down at their daughter. "My hearts. I'll be back shortly."

"Don't' be too long," she whispered in reply. "The universe knows that when I'm out of your sight for longer than a few seconds I manage to find myself in trouble."

He kissed her mouth tenderly. "Two Doctors and two TARDISes," he said with a smile. "I dare the universe to try."

Rose moaned pitifully as he stepped back and winked. "Oh, God. Now that you've said that, Doctor!"

Rose watched as the Doctor turned and then stayed still for a few seconds as though to gather himself and prepare to greet his older self. Before she could open her mouth to ask him if he was okay, he strode forward with a deliberate stride. She let out a breath of appreciation at his retreating form.

"By the Gods, he's beautiful."

There was a snort at her ear. "Yeah. _That_ one is. In an all grown up explorer kind of way."

She looked up and smiled toward Donna, who had let her curiosity guide her toward them. Her smile fell slightly. "More like soldier, Donna. He's on his way back to Gallifrey to fight in the war."

Donna looked pained at that. She looked toward the wave, toward her Doctor, and then looked back to Rose. "So this is him before the war?"

"During," Rose corrected gently. "When he found me he was running from it. Lost everything, he had. His family, his home. The only thing left is Gallifrey; and even then, it's only a shell of what it was." She looked back toward the two men, who now stood side by side looking up at the towering wave. "What's left for 'im?"

"You," Donna offered warmly. "Your little girl." She offered a beaming smile. "Best things in the universe for him to fight for, yeah? Wife and daughter."

"Oh," Rose said with a chuckle and a shake in her head. "We aren't married."

"Just livin' in sin," Jackie injected from the side.

Donna let up a laugh. "Well. Better to be living in sin than not at all, I say." She rose up onto her toes to look closer at the sleeping bundle against Rose's chest. "Gives him something to fight for, yeah?" She held out her hands in a silent request to be able to hold the child. "Can I?"

Rose nodded and expertly settled Arkytior into the crook of Donna's waiting arms. She shushed gently when the infant stirred and whimpered in an unfamiliar embrace. She remained asleep.

"I never really thought of the Doctor as a dad," Donna admitted softly. "Not to an infant, anyway. Not really the paternal type, our Spaceman."

Jackie huffed. "Tell 'im I said this and I'll deny it, but that daft alien is one of the most devoted dads I've ever met. He's completely besotted with his little girl."

Donna looked up and over the icefield toward the Doctor. "He had another kid," she admitted on his behalf. "A girl called Jenny. Pretty little thing, smart, skinny little scrap of nothin' just like her dad."

Rose swallowed thickly. Panic tugged at her shoulders. "D-Do you mean he's moved on, then?"

"From you?" Donna barked incredulously. "Oh. No. No. Absolutely not." She shook her head. "Her comin' to be is a long story, and it isn't via the means you're thinkin'. Let me tell you _that_ much for certain. She was _loomed_ or something like that. Prodegy .. progeny … oh, I dunno. Something. Anyway. There was no form of _dancin_ ' going on." She lifted her eyes and chuckled. "Unless Time Lords have a different way of doin' it, will do it with a machine to keep it clean and then get it done in no time flat."

"Ask _'im_ about it," Jackie offered with a chuckle. "And he'll go on about his _superior Time bits_ and how they are much more efficient at that and ever'thing than we apes are."

Donna's jaw dropped in amusement. "It boggles the mind, doesn't it? Like, can you even _imagine_?"

"Trust me," Jackie moaned. "I'm really trying _not_ to."

Both of them erupted into laughter.

Rose, however, remained stoic and silent. She watched the two men at the wave with sad eyes of worry as she gnawed nervously at her thumbnail. "Donna?"

Donna settled her giggles and looked back toward Rose. "Yeah?"

Rose stopped gnawing at her thumbnail for a moment. She still held it up toward her mouth, but seemed to be content for the moment just letting her teeth hover close to it. "Tell me something. Is he still _fighting_?"

Donna sobered up immediately and nodded slowly. "Rose. It's _your name_ that keeps him fighting."

~~oooOOOooo~~

The first thing that the Tenth Doctor noticed was noise and chatter in his mind. The deathly, deafening silence that had invaded his mind so long ago was suddenly alive with a cacophony of indecipherable conversation and swirling telepathic imagery. It had been so long since he'd heard anything inside his mind that wasn't silence, and so long since he'd extended his telepathic arms to embrace a connection that he didn't immediately attempt to try and isolate any specific conversation or signature. He knew – as he was the very last of his kind – that it was only his own mind that was talking around his. A _younger_ or _older_ version, he didn't know. He had no inclination to try and work it out. Whichever version of him it was that landed his TARDIS nearby would definitely make himself known to him sooner rather than later.

For now, he'd just enjoy having the noise in his mind.

And so he did. He kept his head high, closed his eyes beneath his sunglasses, and inhaled a contented breath.

"Woman's Wept," a familiar voice noted with sadness undertoning the forced joviality that his Eighth self was so prone to have. "It's been a fair while since I've visited these parts."

The Tenth Doctor didn't open his eyes, nor did he turn to the direction of the voice that now stood on his left side. He did let out a long breath before he drew in another and parted his lips to speak. "I've been coming here regularly for the last year and a half," he admitted solemnly.

"Regularly?"

Ten finally opened his eyes and lowered his head just a little. He still didn't look toward his younger self preferring instead to gaze at the smooth arc of the curling wave. "About once a month, sometimes two." He inhaled again. "Depends on what I'm doing an whether or not I can get away."

Eight took a look around him with an expression of confusion. "Why would you continually find yourself here, then? I can give you a list of many more pleasant vacation destinations than here."

Ten shrugged and tightened the fists he held in his trouser pockets. "I'm not sure, really. Something keeps drawing me back here. Like I'm expecting some great impossibility in time to occur like a revelation or conversion of two realities." He lowered his head deep enough that it became difficult to take through his restricted airway. "Like something's coming that I can't miss."

Eight chuckled airlessly. "Or meeting me, perhaps?"

"That is a temporal disaster," Ten groused in reply with a shake in his head. "The universe quakes in fear if one of us bumps into another." He flicked his head toward his younger self. "Why are you here, anyway?"

Eight's brows pinched firmly together. "You mean that you don't know?"

Ten rolled his eyes and slowly moved his head back to look at the wave once more. "If I did, I wouldn't need to ask you, would I?"

"And do you find that in any way odd?"

"Not really," Ten breathed out quietly. "Any time I'm stuck with another one of me, I do tend to make myself forget about it. Well. Why wouldn't I?" he questioned rhetorically. He then grinned toward the wave. "While I do truly believe that the entire universe finds me to be the single most fascinating creature to have ever existed; I personally find myself to be quite forgettable."

"Surely not _all_ of us are _forgettable_ ," he asked quietly.

"Forget _ful_ perhaps," Ten offered with a chuckle. He tipped his head to look at his younger self. "We don't have that famous _Doctor_ eidetic memory in your incarnation, do we?"

"True enough for the beginning of this incarnation," Eight admitted with a scratch at his hair, which was now growing out slightly and curling at the fringe. "And, admittedly, at further points here and there as I trudge along within it."

"There are days I wish that I could forget it all, Doctor," Ten admitted sadly. "There's so much that I wish I could just lock away behind a door and never have to remember it again." His voice fell to a whisper as a tear rolled helplessly down his cheek. "There are days that _remembering_ hurts too damn much."

"But who are we without our memories, Doctor?"

Ten had to expel a humourless and rueful laugh. "A lot happier than I am right now, let me tell you that."

"I see," Eight answered miserably. "Have we really fallen that far, then, that the bad outweighs anything good in our lives?"

"Yeah," Ten breathed slowly and sadly. "What _you've_ got to look forward to, Doctor." He looked toward Eight with sadness in his eyes. "Do yourself a favour. Whatever your first instinct is, take the other path." He let out a breath and looked away again. "Change our timeline into something a little happier."

The urge to tell him to pull his head out of his own ass and stop behaving like a pathetic emo teenage Human was somewhat overwhelming, but Eight reined it in and simply shook his head with disappointment in himself. He looked around them with deliberate exaggeration designed to change the subject. "So. Woman's Wept. So named because the larges continental land mass resembles the image of a lamenting woman."

"Cloud watching," Ten said blandly inside a loud whisper.

"Pardon me?"

Ten looked toward himself once more. "Cloud watching," he repeated before he looked back toward the wave once more. "Ten people look into the sky at the clouds overhead. One person sees an image – clear as the day – and asks his friends what they see." He let out a breath and drew in another. "How many of them are going to see the same thing?" He heard silence from his left and continued speaking. "When you don't name the image; when you leave it to the imagination of another person to see a picture in the clouds, they're rarely going to see what you do. It's all interpretation and imagination." He shuddered out a humourless laugh. "None of us have identical, or even _similar_ interpretations on anything."

"Mmhmm," Eight hummed by way of telling Ten to continue.

"Now if you _tell_ the other person what you're seeing floating by overhead. If you give them a specific image and name what you see, then sure as Pete, they're going to see the same thing you do … whether they actually see it or not."

"The power of suggestion," Eight offered thoughtfully.

"Subliminal messaging works the same way," Ten said with a thick swallow. "If you keep telling them what you want them to see, then eventually they will."

"I expect there's a point to this," Eight ventured as he turned on his heel to face Ten directly at his side. "Or do you prefer to sprout nonsensical garbage to change topics you don't quite like?"

"The point I'm trying to make," Ten snapped irritably, "is that while the image of the continent might appear to one as a weeping woman, the same immediate observation might not be made by a second, and third person without you telling them beforehand just what it is they're supposed to be seeing."

"The image, Doctor," Eight snarled in reply. "Is most definitely a person in distress."

"That's true enough," Ten admitted softly. "But why have we always seen it as the likeness of a woman in emotional distress?" He blinked slowly and inhaled a deep breath. "It's an androgynous form, really. There's no obvious definition in any of the features in that Pareidolian image that make it obviously female." He lowered his head to swallow thickly and spoke through a ragged breath toward his younger self. "I've taken a good look at this rolling rock of ice and sorrow from the doors of my TARDIS over the past several months. I've seen this planet as a whole; of the weeping landmass at its centre, and of the smaller and more fractured landmasses that sit either side of it." He took in a shuddering breath and looked up. "I've stopped seeing the image of a weeping woman."

"And what do you see now?"

Large glistening tears dribbled over the rims of his eyes and rolled quickly down his cheek. He inhaled deeply and shakily through an open mouth. "I see a hopelessly dejected Time Lord holding out his two very shattered hearts."

Eight pressed his lips together and shook his head slightly. If this was what he was going to become as he waded from one regeneration to the next, then he found himself wearing this particular face, then he'd immediately set about getting himself a new one.

"How much do you remember of my previous seven months?"

Ten snorted out an incredulous sound. "Rassilon, man. How in the name of Omega am I supposed to know just where in your timeline you are right now?" He flicked his hand at him in a dismissive gesture. "I've already stated that I don't recall you and I ever meeting like this…"

"Which is worrying," Eight said with a sorrowful sigh. "Very upsetting indeed."

"Why's that?"

"Because remembering _this_ ," he barked angrily. " _This_ is the only thing I have left to fight for. His hand thrust backward to point out the group blurred because of distance. "If I don't remember this. If I can't remember _them_ , then I have _nothing_." He launched forward to clutch desperately at the lapels of Ten's coat. "Tell me, Doctor. Tell me I have their memory, and that I remember each and every detail of the last seven months. Tell me that I take that with me to Gallifrey and that their memory – my most treasured in eight hundred years – is still with me."

Ten could definitely feel the panic laced with sorrow that was surging inside his Eighth body. His mouth gaped, flagged and closed, with the most talkative of all incarnations rendered speechless.

"Tell me, Doctor. Please."

Ten inhaled a shaking breath, the sensation of imminent loss from his younger self engulfing him as powerfully. "What am I forgetting, Doctor?"

"Rose," he breathed pitifully. "Arkytior. Jackie. Pete. My family."

Ten gasped and staggered backward. He shook himself with disbelief and then glared at Eight with distrust. "How do you know who they are?"

"Do you remember them," he growled darkly.

"Of course I do," he snapped angrily. He slapped at his chest, over his left heart. "How can I forget her? Rose is my saviour, my reason to keep going." He panted deep enough that each exhale was a grunt. "The only reason I carry on is because she'd want me to."

Eight gasped with horror. "You say that like she's dead."

"She may as well be," Ten admitted thickly, his mouth drying suddenly. "She's a universe away from me. Locked behind a bloody impenetrable white wall." His voice broke as it softened. "I lost her because I was too arrogant; because I trusted her promise that she'd be with me forever. She fell because I didn't hold on to her like I should have, because she was too damn compassionate, selfless and too brave … because I loved her. I needed her so much that the universe had to take her away from me."

"Very melodramatic," Eight said quietly, although he perfectly understood the sentiment.

"The greatest pain I've ever felt was losing Rose and Jackie to the alternate universe," Ten continued sadly. "They were my family when I'd lost ours to the war. And now they're gone. Forever." He swallowed. "I miss them, Doctor. Even Jackie. And I can't believe I'm admitting that out loud."

Eight set his hand on his younger self's arm and offered him a smile. "You still love her. Rose, I mean."

It was a fact, not a question, but Ten answered as though it was. "Yeah," he breathed through an open mouth. "Yeah, I do."

"And if you had the chance, would you let her spend the rest of her forever with you? Her…" he inhaled a deep breath. "And our daughter."

"Our _what_?"

Eight's eyes flared wide with shock and sorrow. "You really _don't_ know?" He shook his head and fisted at his hair. "She told me you didn't, but I didn't believe her. I told her you knew. You had to know. How couldn't you? How could you _not_ remember that most precious, magnificent moment when we welcomed her into the world and helped her navigate her first few months in the universe?"

Ten inhaled with growing panic. "What have I forgotten, Doctor?" He searched his younger self's eyes. "What did I force myself to forget?"

"Oh and you'd have to _force_ yourself," he growled. "Because those moments, they're seared into my mind right now. I might not remember a great deal in this bumbling incarnation I've ended up in this time around, but I can recall with stunning clarity every single moment I've spent with Rose and Arkytior these past few months."

"Tell me," Ten growled with all of the power of the Oncoming Storm in his demand. "What did I forget?"

An infant's giggle of absolute delight rolled across the barren and icy landscape that stood between the TARDIS and the two Doctors. Immediately the chatter in his mind cleared and separated into two distinct signatures: One of his younger self, and the other of his infant child. His daughter.

Ten felt his knees give beneath him. It was only the firm hold that Eight had on his arm that stopped him from collapsing into the ice.

"Rose. She was pregnant?" Still unbalanced, he turned clumsily to face his younger self. "When she fell, Rose was pregnant?"

"With our daughter, yes."

Ten shook his head, horrified at the idea that he'd lost not only Rose and Jackie, but his unborn child as well. His breath panted in and out of him, wet and hot, and he grabbed full fistfuls of his hair in despair. "Rassilon. Had I known. If she'd told me she was pregnant…"

"You would have either destroyed all of reality to get to her, or you'd have locked her in the TARDIS to protect her and your daughter from any and all perils." He swallowed with sad realization. "And I'd never have met them…"

There was another peal of infant laughter, and Eight's eyes filled with pain. "I wouldn't have my reason to go back to Gallifrey." He looked desperately toward his older self with pleading in his eyes. "Please don't make me have to forget them. I can't do this without their memory in my hearts."

"If you don't forget," Ten warned sadly. "Then when you're me, you'll destroy the very fabric of time to keep them with you. You won't lose them."

"Which means I'll never have the chance to meet them."

"And you'll lose more than just a memory, Doctor."

"I'll lose my will as well." He lifted his head to inhale through his mouth when he found himself no longer able to do so through his nose. "A causal loop that has to remain intact." He dropped his head. "I don't want to forget."

Ten put his hand on Eight's shoulder. "Then help me to remember, and you won't have to forget them forever."

"At least tell me that I at least remember that I _have_ a reason to keep going; that there is something in my future worth fighting for."

Ten smiled and offered him a nod of his head. He petted his left heart with the palm of his hand. "I feel it. In here. There's a reason, a _brilliant_ reason to keep going. I might not have known exactly what it was – but I know that it's worth it."

"At least there's _that_ , I suppose." He looked to Ten with a cocked head. "Romana. Did she ever mention anything about it? Because she knows about Arkytior."

"She probably also knew that you'd have to forget," Ten offered apologetically. "Though when it got particularly bad, she did ask me to recite the words Arkytior Alleliah to myself, and it did push me through the darkness." He tipped his head to the side when Right closed his eyes and nodded. "That's her name, isn't it? Arkytior Allelia."

"I thought the name appropriate for what I knew I was facing when I was recalled back to Gallifrey," Eight admitted solemnly. "There's power in a name, and I thought I'd give the most powerful name I could find."

"And there's no greater power than hope," Ten agreed quietly. "Romana," he mused. "She is an incredible woman, isn't she?"

"Of our entire race, including our founders, she is the one to be most admired." He smiled wryly as he scrubbed at his tears. "Of course, we'll never tell her that."

"Oh," Ten scoffed. "Of course not."

Eight stood tall and inhaled a deep breath. "You help me forget, and I'll make you remember," he offered. His voice staggered just slightly as he looked up the hill to see Donna dancing with his giggling daughter. "Just let me keep my memories of our time together until I leave on the TARDIS."

"It's my oath to you as a Lord of Time."

"Vow to me as the Doctor," Eight snarled. "I don't trust the word of any Time Lord to let you take your oath as one of them. Rassilon, I barely trust _you_ enough to do it."

Ten smiled and gave a nod of his head. He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and lowered his chin. "Contact?"

Eight dropped his chin. "Contact."

The memory transfer from one Time Lord mind to another was instantaneous, but to each man it felt like hours. It was with an inhale that Ten took in all of the memories that Eight had to offer him. Sadness and isolation were replaced quickly with vivid feelings of discovery and joy at the birth of his precious daughter. Love and passion replaced loss and desolation as memories of affection, laughter, and making love with Rose swirled back to life. He could recall with stunning clarity the daily playful banter with Jackie, and the incessant mothering she consistently assaulted him with. Pete, and their burgeoning friendship. The alternate universe and it's hundreds of exciting differences that made for terrific tabletop conversations at dinner, doing dishes, while bathing their infant, and in the afterglow of love, when he and Rose were far too spent to talk about or do anything else.

All that he'd lost, Ten suddenly regained. He felt suddenly energized, like a regeneration into a man with thrill in his eyes and excitement in the bounce of his eager feet.

And now. Now he wanted nothing more in the entire universe than to rush to Rose and hold that brilliant woman so close to him that they'd quite frankly merge to become one.

There was another peel of laughter and Ten quickly launched forward with the intention of barrelling along the ice to get to them. The sound of his daughter's brilliant giggling, and Rose's laughter mingling with the off-key voice of Donna singing a nursery rhyme urged that movement, and he was willing to propel himself through any and all barriers to get to them.

He didn't do it when he lost them, but he sure as Gallifrey was going to do it now!

Footsteps thundered at his side as he tore off across the ice, and he grinned knowing that he was now in a race against himself to get to Rose, to hold her, and to never let her go again.

"Last one there," he panted with challenge to Eight, "has to kiss Jackie Tyler full on the mouth and call her Mum."

"Oi!" The woman in question bellowed in a shrill command, which stopped the Tenth Doctor dead in his tracks – only feet away from his beloved Rose. "Not so fast, Doctor. Before I let you go near my Rose again, you and I are going to have a talk."

"But. But, Jackieee," he whined pathetically as he twisted side to side to attempt to look around her at Rose. Rose who was laughing behind her hand at his predicament of being trapped on the other side of Jackie Tyler by, well, by Jackie Tyler: an impenetrable white wall of her own.

He whimpered as Eight broke past the barrier and grabbed Rose in a spinning hug that had her laughing with absolute delight.

"Please, Jackie-"

"I believe that's _Mum_ , to you, Doctor."

He looked up rather petulantly toward Jackie. "Do I have to kiss you as well?"


	12. A Gate Called Jackie Tyler

A/N: I lied.

There was a little bit more that I had to get through before I end this tale... I didn't want to cut Eight off short before he has to leave his little family, so this is the additional chapter before the end of this tale - where we say goodbye to Eight and let Ten and Rose and Arkytior begin their forever together...

Thanks a tonne for all the awesome comments! I love hearing from you guys! It makes me know I'm doing okay ...

I hope you enjoy this one ... I hope you aren't in any way disappointed ...

~~oooOOOooo~~

"You? Kiss me?" Jackie barked with a laugh. She set her hands on her hips and actually threw her head backward to do it. She quickly settled and lowered her head to regard him with cool eyes. "You bet you will, skinny little hedgehog. In fact, give me a moment to drop my trousers so you can kiss me where it counts, then."

The expression on his face fell to quiet disgust. He swallowed thickly enough that his cheek dimpled almost hollow. "That. That's very disgusting, Jackie." He shuddered and creased his face into a wince of further distaste. "And, really. _Really_? I'd much rather not even _imagine_ what you are suggesting that I –"

"I'm referring to my arse, you spike-haired fool."

"Are you so horribly offended by my hair that you have to continually remark on it when you're insulting me?"

She folded her arms across her chest and narrowed one eye as though to closely scrutinize his chosen hairstyle. "I can fix that right up for ya, you know."

"What?" he asked with a smirk. He tipped his head to one side to take a look at his younger self, who had happily wrapped himself around Rose's back and was grinning at him over her shoulder. "So I can end up looking like _him_. No ta. Been there, done that, I even have the T-shirt." His grin fell. "The boots. The jacket, and even the broken old fob watch I was rather fond of back then. Which. Which wasn't broken when I left here…"

"Oh Doctor," Jackie cooed gently. She opened her arms to him. "Come here, you plum. Give me a big hug and let me get a piece of you."

He stepped back lightly and drew his head back further away from her with a tilt in his back as low as his body would allow him to. "I'd really rather not," he managed through a curled lip and crinkled nose. "Thanks anyway."

He straightened up, thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and took a long stride backward. By his calculation that gave him just enough room to bolt forward, twist and turn, and be able to evade further potential blockage by Jackie Tyler. "Now if you _don't_ mind. I'd really like to say hello to Rose." His voice fell into a breathy sound of absolute longing. "It's been so long and I've been so very lonely without her."

"Yeah," Jackie muttered indignantly. "And your _loneliness_ is goin' to last a bit longer, mister. You're not permitted anywhere near my little girl until you and I-" Her eyes widened and she made a sound of warning to him when he looked fit to argue. "Uh. Uh. I'm talking now. No Rose until you and I have had a couple of words about your behaviour."

His eyes widened and he let out a cough of disbelief. His arms opened up with question. "My _what_? My _Behaviour_?"

"Oh that's right," she purred threateningly. "Your rampant trolloping around time and space tryin' ta pick up aristocratic French bints and pigtail buns with a _Y_. And don't you even try an' argue it. Rose told me all, she did. You're more than just _rude_ , you are, "

"If I had even half an idea of what you were talking about, Jackie Tyler, then I'd probably expend the effort to argue against your accusations," he grumbled with a petulant glare across his eyes. He flicked an annoyed finger toward his Eighth body, who was laughing with great delight at his delayed reunion.

…Disturbingly, Rose Tyler was just as amused as Eight was.

"I see you've picked a favourite," he growled. "No type of discussion on _his_ behaviour, I see, and yet you let him drape himself all over your _little girl_."

Jackie straightened up and lifted her brows as she looked down at him with contempt. "Well. He hasn't done anything I don't like. Pure gentleman, he is."

Ten's head tipped to one side and he flicked his own brow into a high arch. "You do realise that he's me, right? Anything I've done, he's going to go ahead and do exactly the same thing."

"And if I've learned anythin' about the progression of time," she said with a smirk. "And God knows I've had to listen to you over talk East Enders this last little while about time lines and rivers…"

"Streams," Eight corrected with a chuckle. "Time Streams, Jackie."

"Just because you're cleverer than me, Doctor, there's no need to constantly prove it," she snarled over her shoulder. She then poked her finger into Ten's shoulder. "When he's _you_ , then younger me's goin' to be havin' this same chat with him. Am I right?"

Ten nodded and grunted his agreement. There was a pinch in his eyes that indicated he was not at all pleased about the continued delays in reaching his Rose for a long overdue cuddle and – if he had his way – a snog or three or four.

"You do know that I have the ability to contain you in a time bubble that will grant me more than enough time to-"

"Are you threatening me?" She tipped her head so that she kept her eyes on him, but spoke over her shoulder to her husband. "Pete. This skinny scrap of pinstripes is threatening to lock me up in a time bubble."

"No-o-o-o, I'm not," he sang warily while his mind quickly ran through a list of believable backpedals. "I'm just _bragging_ about a Time Lord's, uh, ability. One that I might not have been able to _brag_ about to you in the past." He grinned a wide and manic smile. "I was never one for skiting about how very superior the Time Lords were against all other species across the universe when I was in _that_ incarnation, and I sort of assumed that you missed my, uh, bragging?"

"I certainly didn't miss your bullshittin', that's for sure," Jackie intoned rather blandly. "And speaking of bullshit." Her eyes flared wide with an unspoken order for him to not even think about arguing. "I don't wanna be seeing your mouth preparin' to go flappin' about with argument, Doctor. You can go do your alien cuddlin' and snoggin' thing with my Rose in a mo. I'm not going to deny you that and all because Lord knows that she's not goin'ta listen to me if I told her no anyway. Brings me home an alien grandbaby after I told her no and all, didn't she?"

He pressed his lips together and offered her a firm nod. The sooner he let her speak, the sooner he could be doing more than "cuddlin' and snoggin'" with _his_ Rose Tyler…

…Right after he launched his younger self back up into the Vortex and back to Gallifrey – preferably with one of his Chucks embedded firmly up his…

"Are you listenin' to me, Doctor?"

The Doctor blinked and looked back toward Jackie with innocent eyes. He nodded with uncharacteristic eagerness. "Yes. Yes. Do go on. I'm listening to you now. Chop chop."

"She loves you, you know," Jackie said soberly, all aggression in her voice gone. "Was a mess the whole time she was in Pete's world. Ne'er mind that she had all her family with her, even her best mate. She wasn't happy. None of all that was good enough for her since she met you."

He blinked with surprise. "I'm sure that's not true."

"It is," Jackie corrected quickly. "And we're good with it. Not thrilled, mind, but the Lord knows we understand. Love is a selfish beast when it comes bitin' at ya." She looked back to Pete with a loving smile. "It's come at me twice, afterall."

The Doctor rocked back on his heels and grinned. "Thanks to me." His grin fell to the pursed lips of a chastised child when she turned to glare at him. "Nevermind."

"Love's not easy," she continued on a lecture. "And hearts get broken real fast when one of you gets flirty feet happenin'."

He opened his mouth to argue, but was stopped immediately when Jackie raised her finger.

"I'm not done yet," she warned. She set her hands on her hips. "Now me and Pete. We're not stayin' in the other world. We're gonna be on this side of the wall where my Rose and little Kate can call me up whenever they want. Which means that I'm going to know when they're hurtin'."

The Doctor's eyes were wide, and he was being quite attentive to Jackie's warning regardless of the reminders swirling in his head about him being a Lord of Time and therefore quite high above any rants and threats made by a human …

…Even if that human was Jackie Tyler, who was beyond doubt the single most terrifying creature he'd ever encountered.

"And I don't want to hear any moaning about you being a Lord of _whatever_ , and how you're better'n me and all, and then don't need to listen to the likes of me."

She can read minds now apparently…

"But I'll have you know, Doctor," she continued without taking a breath. "That I am definitely the highest power in this universe where my Rose and little Kate are concerned. Don't you go about thinkin' that there's anywhere in all of time and space that you and your spaceship can hide in if'n I hear any tears from my girls because you were too busy playing the man-whore to whatever pretty thing smiled your way…"

"I'll have you know," he blustered with obvious insult.

"So there will be no more leavin' my Rose behind in a bleedin' chophouse spaceship filled with homicidal robots while you go off'n chase yourself a piece of skirt in ancient France…"

"There's really no such thing as _Ancient France_ , Jackie."

She cleared her throat with a single cough of annoyance. "There's no such thing as my foot up your backside, neither, but let me tell you that it's somethin' I can definitely make 'appen if my Rose calls me cryin' because you're after some tart with your flirty ways and ignorin' my girl's safety for it."

"Jackie, I promise you-"

"She had love this little while, Doctor," Jackie continued fiercely. "She's had love and loyalty and dedication from _that_ you." She pointed out his younger self, who now had his cooing baby laid across one arm, and held his other arm protectively across Rose's shoulder. He held them close and quite obviously was besotted with them both. "He's given them his hearts, Doctor. His whole hearts. And I don't wanna see her end up with a man – alien or not – that is so scared to admit how he feels that he runs from her."

The Doctor shifted his eyes back toward Jackie. He swallowed thickly and nodded his head.

"Just promise me, Doctor," she concluded softly. "Promise me that you're going to love them both more'n anything else in this whole universe. I'm giving you the most precious things in my life. Make them the most precious things in yours."

The Doctor stepped forward and nodded his head gently as he touched his hands to Jackie's elbows and then tugged them lightly in an invitation for her to lift them up over his shoulders. He stepped into her and sighed gratefully when she embraced him fiercely.

"I promise you," he vowed inside a passionate whisper against the side of her head. "I promise that they are, and always will be my only priority, and I will love them as fiercely as you do." He smiled at her sniffle against his collar. "And if I forget my promise and do anything that upsets them, then I understand that Rose has a Jackie Tyler and isn't afraid to use her against me."

She chuckled a broken laugh against his collar and sniffed wetly. "You do that," she whispered. "Do it for me. I know I'm not worth much in all this, Doctor, but please give me this."

He held her a little tighter for that. "You're worth much more than you give yourself credit for, Jackie. Never forget that."

Jackie sniffed deeply and then took a sudden stride backward. She held one hand on the Doctor's arm and wiped at her nose with her sleeve. "Now get over to her, you daft git." She tipped her head to them. "Well? Go on, then."

The Doctor stepped back from Jackie and looked across the small space between he and Rose. He gave her an almost shy kind of smile and a look of affection though his eyelashes as he tipped his head downward just slightly. His shy smiled stretched into a wide grin when he watched her pull gently away from his Eight self and beam a smile of her own.

"Hello," he called with a little tickling wave of his fingers.

"Hi," she called back with a widening smile.

"Long time, no-" His words stammered as she suddenly collided with him; chest against chest, blonde hair against brown pinstripes. "-See."

She hummed a growl against his collar that whimpered out to a relived groan. "I missed you," she vowed over his shoulder as she rose up onto her toes and clutched at him yet tighter.

"Oh," he growled long as he dipped at the knees, lowered the seat of his arms to settle across her backside, and hauled her up high enough that her legs dangled almost helplessly in the air in front of him.

Rose squealed as she playfully kicked her legs behind her and used the tight grip he had on her to lean backward with a laugh of absolute thrill. She could feel the poke of his chin into the valley between her breasts and knew that he was looking up at her, watching her laughing with her head thrown back in delight.

After a moment, she let her laughter fade and settled her forearms on his shoulders to comfortably settle herself in his arms in a position she knew that he wasn't going to release her from any time soon. She looked down into his glistening eyes and toyed with the hair at the back of his neck with her fingers.

"I take it you missed me too?" she queried almost shyly.

"More than you could possibly know," he replied with a broken voice. "So much, Rose." His brows tightened together in a pained expression. "So _very_ much."

She dipped her head in an attempt to kiss that frown away, but found that he was too far out of reach for her to do so. She wriggled lightly. "You can let me down now."

He shook his head. "No."

Her head tilted to one side with question. "Why not? I can't be too light, you know. Still got baby fat to get rid of before I'm as light as I was."

"I can handle you," he promised with a grin. "And I quite like you here. Held up above me where I can look _up_ to you instead of you looking up to me for a change." His grin faltered. "Because it's where you belong, Rose, and it's what I need to start doing more often."

She settled into her shoulders and smiled a cheeky expression down to him. "So you want to hold me up here. All the time. Never look down at me ever again kinda thing. Am I right?"

"In one," he answered with a beaming grin and a swoop in his head. "My clever, precious girl."

She lifted her gaze and nodded. She looked over the top of his head toward where Eight stood with Arkytior snuggled against his chest. "So forever up here, lording – or" she corrected with a giggle. " _ladying_ over you."

"Works for me."

She licked at her teeth and managed to give him a smile before removing her tongue completely from her smile. "It's going to be awfully hard to kiss you if I'm always up 'ere then, Doctor. I can't reach you."

He immediately released the hold of his arms and let her feet drop quickly to the ground. He steadied her within a tightening circle of his arms around her back. "We can't have that, now," he purred as he brushed his nose against hers. "Can't have that at-"

"Oh shut up," she growled somewhat predatiously before she cut off any chance of further conversation with a bruising claim on his mouth with hers.

He responded immediately to her demand. The moment that her mouth sealed against his, the Doctor snapped his arms tightly around her back. True to his earlier desire, he tightened his arms so fiercely that they may well have been one being. Between skin, pinstriped wool, leather jackets and black trousers, it was impossible to see where one of them began and the other ended. In fact, he held her so very tightly against him that Rose struggled to be able to draw in a breath. It took a good thirty seconds for her struggle to really take hold, but when it did, she snapped away from him and then struggled in his arms for release.

"Doctor," she begged him airlessly. "Too tight. Too tight."

He released her immediately, his eyes wide and practically manic at the thought that he may have hurt her. "Sorry Rose, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean-"

She shushed him by pressing her fingertip against his swollen lips. "It's alright, Doctor." She smiled almost bashfully as she pressed her fingers against her own almost bruised lips. "Every girl wants to be kissed like that at least once in their lives." She giggled behind her fingertips. "Makes them feel wanted, you know?"

"And you are," he assured her as he flicked his hand forward to take her hand in his. "Always." He tugged on her hand and drew her toward him once more, drawing her into another hug. He closed his eyes and hummed with utter contentment through a toothy smile as he held her tightly in his arms and let his mind _remember_ just how incredible it felt to hold her.

There was an impatient infant whine from their right, and both Rose and the Doctor separated just slightly to take a look at the little pink bundle that struggled against the Eighth Doctor's chest. Arkytior held out her little chubby arms toward the Tenth version of her father in a stubbornly urgent request for him to take her. Big blue eyes reddened and watered behind impossibly long and black lashes as her tiny little triangle mouth quivered and contorted with her whining.

Rose took a slow step back from the Doctor, leaving her hands lingering on his chest as she looked into his face. "I think someone wants to say hi to her Daddy."

He nodded without looking toward Rose, and brought her hand to his mouth to kiss it gently before he stepped toward his wriggling little girl. Arkytior struggled and pushed her feet against Eight's chest before finally climbing into Ten's waiting arms. She settled herself in the crook of his arm without the Doctor having to do much to make her comfortable, and she looked up at him with her big blue eyes and an open-mouthed smile on her chubby little face.

"Hello Arkytior," he cooed softly. "It's been a long while, hasn't it?"

She hiccupped and then broke into thrilled giggles at the sound she'd made.

"Oh and look at her," Donna said with a deliberate baby voice as she looked over the Doctor's shoulder. "Just like her daddy, she loves the sound of her own voice."

The Doctor touched his finger to the little girl's chin and watched with awe as she curled her hand around his finger. "Look at my daughter, Donna. Isn't she absolutely beautiful?"

"She obviously gets it from her mother," Donna said softly with a laugh.

"That's right," he whispered as he let his eyes trail over her fluffy brunette hair, her rosy little cheeks, and her little button nose. "Beautiful, just like her mum."

"Careful," Rose warned as she stepped beside him to look over his shoulder at their baby. "Keep giving me compliments like that and I might get a swelled head." She nestled against his side when he moved his free arm to loop it around her back. She let out a long breath of utter contentment when she felt his lips against her temple. "But feel free to tell her how beautiful she is every single day."

There was a flash of light, and both the Doctor and Rose gasped as they looked up to find its source. Rose gave Eight a slightly confused expression as he stuffed a camera into his pocket and shook a disk-sized black piece of film in his hand.

"A picture," he said with a smile as he blew his breath onto the front of it and gave it another quick shake.

"You know that blowing on it and shaking it don't help it to develop any faster," Ten advised him with an arched brow of disbelief. "Chemical reactions take their own time and aren't going to speed up just because you impatiently shake it about."

"That's very true," Eight muttered in reply, but still with his smile in place. "But it is the process that we all undertake when using an instamax, and it's one I will continue to perform." He grinned toward Rose. "Because it's an additional little bit of fun to add to the excitement of seeing what image we've captured."

Donna coughed and looked between both of the Doctors. "Instamax, as in an old _polaroid_ camera?"

"Of course," Eight answered with wide eyes and an equally wide grin. "Why not?"

"Because it's archaic," Donna pointed out with a shake in her head. "And you're Mr. _I have to have the latest and most advanced technology around._ "

Eight looked toward Ten with an arch in his brow as he continued to shake the photograph. "Is that what I've become?"

Ten looked up from making faces at Arkytior and shook his head at his former self. "I have no idea what she's talking about."

"Yes," Eight droned with a roll in his eyes. "I expect that you don't."

He looked down at the photograph in his hand and smiled at the image of himself in pinstripes, with spiked hair, and with a smile as wide as the universe itself. Rose was tucked into one side of him, and Arkytior was cooing and smiling from the crook of his arm.

"I'm going to pin this to the rotor column," he said sadly. "I might be forced to forget all this to preserve the timelines, but I'll keep this reminder that …" His voice shuddered. "That there's happiness somewhere out there across the universe that I need to protect." He looked to Ten. "Did I ever know that that happiness was mine?"

He shook his head slowly in reply. "I'm sorry."

"So am I," he sighed as he took a longing look at the photograph of his precious girl and their daughter. " _Rassilon_ , so am I."

"I still have that picture tucked away somewhere," Ten admitted with a sigh. "And you know. Until this moment I didn't know who that family was. I just knew they were happy, and I found myself sometimes living somewhat vicariously through them." He smiled to one side and let out a short and rueful laugh. "I put it away after the war and forgot about it." He looked toward rose with a pinch in his brow. "I must've looked at that photo at least twice a day for an entire century of warfare. How did I never put it together that they picture was of you?"

Rose shrugged. "I guess I'm very generic looking." She looked toward Eight with wide eyes. "We all look alike, maybe?"

Behind them all, Eight's TARDIS issued a wheezing whine of warning that their time was up. He looked back to the ship, to her flashing top light, and then looked back toward Rose with tears quickly filling his eyes.

"No," he whimpered with a shake in his head. "I'm not ready. It's not time. Not yet. Please." His breath panted in and out. "I don't wanna go."


	13. Goodbye

A/N: Well. This is it! All done. Finished.

Well... There is definitely room for an epilogue, of course, and I might well write it, but for now I am comfortable to leave it where it is.

Thanks to everyone who read this little tale of mine, and especially thank you to those of you who took the time to comment and let me know what you think. I really and truly appreciate it.

I honestly hope that if you made it this far that I didn't disappoint you. Thanks again!

~~oooOOOooo~~

There were tears in his eyes and a definite break in his voice when he made his plea to stay just that little bit longer, but when he stated that he didn't want to go, it was clear that the Time Lord's resolve was shattering. This wasn't a side of him that Rose had ever seen before. Even when they said goodbye on the beach and he was clearly upset by it, he didn't seem to be as traumatised as he looked to be right now.

She peeled herself from Ten's side and approached Eight with all the caution she would have if she was approaching an injured animal. His name passed gently through her lips as she held open her arms for him. "Doctor?"

He walked into her arms and dropped his forehead onto her shoulder. His arms came up quickly to clutch at her shoulder blades. "I shouldn't let this hurt me as much as it is," he admitted brokenly without lifting his head from her shoulder. Slowly he turned his head to bury his eyes into the crook of her neck. His arms shifted and tightened to curl himself into her; one arm curled around her waist, the other holding a flattened palm in between her shoulder blades. His hold was tight enough that her back was forced into a light backward arch.

"I don't cry, Rose," he admitted almost inaudibly. "I've never wanted to cry like this." He inhaled a shaking breath. "I don't _want_ to cry like this. I _shouldn't_ cry like this."

She felt his tears against her neck. She could feel the moist heat of his breath against her throat. She couldn't help but fall apart with him. "It'll be okay, Doctor. _You'll_ be okay."

"I'm not," he answered with a petulant, and very wet whisper. "And I'm not ever going to be."

Rose felt his hold tighten yet further. His shoulders and chest jerked almost violently against her as he succumbed to his agony. "You have us now," she offered pitifully. "You brought us home, and we aren't goin' anywhere."

"How can you ask me to do this?" he challenged hotly against her neck. "How can you give me something worth fighting for, and then ask me to give it up like this?"

"How can you say that we're both worth fighting for," she asked him somewhat sagely. "If you're not willing to go into battle?"

"Don't you dare rationalise it so perfectly like that," he growled. "It's not fair."

Behind his shuddering back, the TARDIS groaned with insistence that he finish his goodbyes and leave.

Rose's eyes shot up to glare at the blue Box. "He's comin', alrigh'?" she snapped at her. "Just give him a minute."

"It's not her fault," he defended softly. "She's fighting off a recall order from Gallifrey. The more she fights against it, the more it hurts her."

"But you're hurtin', too, Doctor."

"My soul is dying," he corrected dramatically against her neck, still unable to pull away from her. "Don't make me go."

The pathetic way that he made that request gave Rose the strength she needed to draw back from him and try to be the one who held it together and gave the advice that would hopefully help him through it.

"Doctor," she began gently as she slid her hands down over his shoulders and then long his arms in urging for him to release her. "Come on, Love. Listen to me." It was a struggle to convince him to let her go, but he finally loosened his hold and released her.

He let out a defeated huff and looked up briefly toward his older self before he fell into a despondent stand in front of Rose. "Like it or not, I have to say goodbye to you all, don't I?"

Rose pressed her lips tightly together and slowly nodded her head.

"Don't make me," he pleaded softly. "Between the both of us-" He waved toward Ten without looking in his direction. "I'm sure we can make it work."

Rose lifted her head high and inhaled fast and deeply through her nose. She wiped at her eye with her sleeve and then exhaled with purpose. "If you don't go," she began bravely. The crack in her voice betrayed the courageous front she was trying so valiantly to project. "If you stay with us, Doctor, then this…" she flicked her hand between them. "This will never happen. You and me, we won't happen." Her voice softened. "Arkytior .. Our _daughter_ will never happen."

She hoped that reminding him of how intertwined their timelines were that the Time Lord inside him would rise to the surface and agree that they must be preserved at all costs.

She didn't count on the insolent and petulant 800-year old brat within him being a more powerful and driving force than the Time Lord.

"There are ways to make sure that it all comes to pass, Rose," he countered without looking at her. He toyed with the fob watch he had attached to his belt. "I've done my fair share of manipulating timelines to make sure things happen." He lifted his eyes and smiled. "Have I told you yet just how easily manipulated flux points really are?"

Rose let out a breath and looked back toward Ten. She tipped her head at him and widened her eyes in order. "Well? You gonna step in and tell him he's wrong, or not?"

Ten readjusted the seat of Arkytior's little bottom on his arm and nodded gently. He took his time to walk across the rocky terrain toward them. "She's right, of course, Doctor," he offered apologetically. "You know she is. There are things that _have_ to happen, and obstacles that we _need_ to cross before we can settle down and have our family."

"That's a very fine position that you're in to be able to give me your wise words," he snarled in reply. "You have our family. You will leave here _with_ them. Leave with the family that I ensured we'd have."

"You forget…"

" _I_ forget," he growled. " _Me_? How _dare_ you. You are the one who forgets that it was me who found Rose at the most frightening and pivotal time of her young life. It was _me_ who birthed our beautiful child. It was _me_ who brought them back home when _you_ told them it was impossible."

"And it's _you_ who's acting like a spoiled child," Ten snapped sharply. "Pull yourself together and start acting like a Lord of bloody Time instead of a Loomling throwing a temper tantrum in the nursery." He looked away a moment to school his breath with controlled inhales through his nose. After a second he looked back to his younger self and softened his tone. "I stood in the place you are right now, Doctor. I stomped, begged and pleaded and wept just like you are now. I get it. I really do. This is a pain that I didn't know I was going to survive."

He looked up to the TARDIS standing behind the Doctor. "But I promise you. The second that her doors close behind you, that pain will stop." He looked back to his younger self. "You'll go back to Gallifrey. You'll fight in the war with a photograph pinned to the rotor of the TARDIS and the words _Arkytior Alleliah_ in your mind. You might not understand their importance to you, but you'll hold both in the highest regard and turn to them when you're at your lowest points. Trust me. I know that's asking a great deal – because we never seem to like trusting ourselves – but please try. You'll fight that war, you'll survive _everything_ that those damn Daleks will throw at you, and then you'll come back to Earth." He looked toward Rose with a smile on his face. "You'll find yourself in a department store basement filled with plastic mannequins looking at world domination. In that basement you'll take the hand of a beautiful blonde human girl. You'll tell her to _run_."

"And we'll never stop runnin'," Rose finished with a smile. She took Eight's hand and held it against her chest. "You and me, Doctor. We've got so much to look forward to together. Those memories of me and you runnin' about space and time are so important to me. So important to _us_. Don't take them from me. Please?"

"But I have to forget," he whispered sadly. "When I leave, I'm going to forget it all, and I don't want to."

Rose grinned widely and clutched more tightly at his hand. "Then we'll make those memories _together_ , Doctor. Just think of how amazin' it's going to be after the war when you're back to travellin' and causing mischief across the universe." She dipped her head to kiss at his fingertips, and looked up at him through her lashes. "Do you really just want to be told second-hand stories about who we are together, or would you prefer to actually _live_ it?" She waggled her brows. "Oh, how much fun we had."

His lips pursed with intrigue. "Fun, you say?"

"Oh," she sang in a manner so much more Doctor than it was Rose. "You have no idea what a merry time we have together. You'll want _every day_ to be _today_. Charles Dickens, Face of Boe, Queen Victoria and bein' knighted and banished in the same day, warewolves, cat nuns, even the devil himself…"

He abruptly tugged his hand free of hers and then lunged forward to clutch her hard against his chest in a fierce embrace. "My beloved and precious girl. Only you can possibly know just what it is that drives me most; how to make me bend to your will blindly and with full faith."

"Curiosity and intrigue," she said cheekily. "Always the way to the Doctor's hearts."

"That and my precious child's brilliant laughter," he said with a sad smile as he looked toward his child, who watched him with wide and unblinking eyes.

"Best sound in the universe," Rose agreed. "Oh, and the TARDIS, of course."

"Of course, my dear," Eight agreed. He inhaled deeply to centre himself somewhat and then strode proudly toward Pete. He extended his hand and offered the man an honest smile. "Peter Tyler. The honour to know you has been all mine. I don't know what my future self is like, and whether or not you like him much, but I expect you to keep him in line and make sure to give him a decent kick in the rear if he plays up."

"That's _my_ job," Jackie piped up quickly. She waited only long enough for a single shake of hands before she threaded herself in between the two men to embrace the Doctor with a warm mother's hug. "You be careful out there, Doctor. You fight the good fight, but remember to come back home and rebuild your family. With us. Me, Pete, Rose and Kate."

"It's my vow, Jackie."

"Oh, call me Mum," she offered with a sniff. "I love you, you daft alien. Don't you go forgettin' it, neither. We might not get along in the start n'all, and your cheek might cop my wrath when you bring my lil' girl home late, but I love ya, yeah?"

"And you're in my hearts, too, Jackie Tyler," he breathed gratefully. He pulled back from her embrace and held her at arm's length to offer her a smile and a light bow of his head. "Mum."

She playfully punched at his shoulder and then wiped clumsily at her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. "And don't you be forgettin' it."

The Doctor didn't speak again before he turned and swooped Rose into his arms and lifted her from the ground in a spiralling, spinning embrace that made her squeal out with delight. "Oh my Rose," he sang as he slowed the spin and then set her feet on the ground so that he could cup her face in both of his hands and draw her into a tender and loving kiss. "My hearts beat for you, my precious girl. For now and into all time, everything I do is to get back to you to begin our life together and make our family."

"Works for me," she sang with a tongue-touched smile.

…That was swiftly claimed with a swooping and dramatic kiss. A kiss that only ended because of an urgent little whine from an impatient little girl who wanted a cuddle from her daddy. He moved in quickly to pull her free from Ten's arms and then pulled her into his chest.

"My sweet little Kerfluffiedaw. Regardless of what your grandmother believes about your namesake, you take that title and you simply own it. Unicorns are brilliant and majestic creatures, pigs are intelligent and non discriminating." He smiled into her face and then kissed her dewy forehead. "And you, my precious child, are both."

She purred little bubbles from between her lips.

"And you are forever in my hearts," he vowed softly. He looked up to his older self with sad and pleading eyes. "Protect them, Doctor. Love them with everything you have inside you."

"I will," he answered with fierce passion in his oath. "My word on my TARDIS."

"And you know the old girl will hold you to that."

Ten nodded with a laugh. "Oh, won't she just?"

Arkytior hiccupped a high-pitched sound and erupted into gleeful laughter at her own sound. Her laughter dies down somewhat as she rounded her little mouth through different sounds that she discovered she could make if she twisted and turned her tongue inside her mouth.

"La la, ma ma," she babbled out. "Da da." Her eyes widened. "Dadadadada."

"Rassilon," Eight croaked as he watched his little girl string together a series of syllables that he could believe, just for a moment, was her calling him father, and not just her babbling nonsensically. "I can't," he managed with desperation as he held her toward Ten. "I can't do this. Please. Please take her."

Ten quickly swooped his singing child into his arms and looked worriedly toward Eight. "Doctor?"

"I. I." He struggled to pull together his words. He looked between the family he'd known these past few months and finally shook his head and took a stride backward. "I can't do this. I have to go. If I. If I don't, I won't."

He turned abruptly and stalked toward the TARDIS. Rose was quick to follow behind him. "Doctor!"

He shook his head and strode faster. "I have to go, Rose. Now." He shoved open the door and looked back one last time. "My hearts," he vowed with heartbreak. "Always there, all of you." He stepped across the threshold and disappeared. "Goodbye."

The blue door slammed loudly behind him, leaving the barren and icy field around the group silent beyond the cooing of a young infant.

Rose looked momentarily lost. She shook her head and danced on her feet with indecision as to whether or not to follow him to ensure that he was going to be okay. Today she'd seen a side of him that she'd never seen before, and she wondered exactly where and what he was going to do from here. "Will he be okay?" she asked worriedly when she felt Ten's arm circle across her back.

"He's fine, Rose."

Donnna, unlike Rose, had definitely seen this side of him before. She _knew_ how dangerous it could make him if he wandered off alone in this condition. She shook her head and moved to stalk toward the TARDIS.

"We're not really lettin' him go like this, are we?"

"Donna," The Doctor called sharply. "Step away from the TARDIS. He has to leave, that's the way it goes. He'll be fine."

Donna spun on her heel and levered him with a hot glare. "Fine, yeah? _Fine_ you say? You tell me, after he's given up his whole family to go into _war_ , the war that destroyed half of Kasterborous, you tell me he's _fine_?"

The Doctor nodded and gently handed Arkytior to Rose. He thrust his hands into his pockets and approached his current companion warily. "He may have done all that," he said carefully, and with both brows arched high and his head turned just slightly off centre to her. "And when he walked away, he was absolutely heartsbroken, but I promise you, he's fine. He will be fine. Absolutely fine. Nothing but fine and dandy."

"Like _you_ were _fine_ when I first met you right after you lost Rose?"

He looked down at his feet and cleared his throat. "That's different."

"How is that different?" she howled in question.

"It just," he began with a wince. "It just _was_."

"I watched you try and kill yourself," she growled darkly. "Almost drowned yourself beneath the Thames you were so messed up with grief over losin' Rose. You've been a reckless mess ever since. And you want to send him off to war with the same pain?"

"You don't understand," he snipped in reply. "I had all the memories and felt all that pain. He-" he shoved his hand toward the TARDIS. "He gets to forget. He doesn't have to feel the pain that I did …" He looked toward the TARDIS, and to a glossy piece of paper on the rocks. "At least not yet, anyway."

Donna glared at him as he walked toward the TARDIS and then stooped to pick up the paper. "How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because I was there once, myself," he said quietly as he took a look at the photograph he held in his hand. With a huff, he pounded on the TARDIS doors. "Doctor! Doctor, open up."

The right door to the TARDIS flew open, and the Eighth Doctor popped his head out. His brows were set high with curiosity and his lips pursed with surprise.

"Yes, Yes. I hear you," he boomed out with humour in his voice. He stopped short when he saw a man in pinstripes standing just a short stride back from the door. "Well. Hello. I'm the Doctor. What can I do for you?"

Ten offered him a smile and held up the Polaroid photograph of him, Rose and little Arkytior. "You dropped this," he answered warmly. "And I thought I'd give it back to you."

Eight curled around the door to exit his time ship. He left the door open and took a couple of stride out. He shivered lightly in the cold. "Well. It's kind of brisk out today, isn't it?"

"Typical climate for this time of year," Ten offered. He held forward the picture. "From me and my wife. As a thank you."

Eight's brows lifted high as he took the photograph. He looked at the picture, and then lifted his eyes to look across at Rose and her little girl. "As a thank you for _what_ , exactly?" He grinned with apology. "You will have to forgive me. This current incarnation of mine does tend to be a little forgetful. Perhaps it's because I was so far away from my TARDIS when I regenerated." He petted at the side of his ship. "I didn't have her help in navigating my new form."

Ten grinned and nodded a knowing bounce of his head. "Yes. So you've said."

Eight pocketed the photograph and petted the pocket with his fingers. "I'll keep it here for safe keeping. Now if you wouldn't mind, could you remind me just what it was that I did for you and your lovely family, Mr. … I'm sorry, what is your name?"

"John," Ten answered in a beat. "John Smith." He looked back toward Rose, who watched with an expression of utter devastation. "My wife, Rose, and my daughter, Kate." He looked back to his younger self. "We got separated, and you were kind enough to help us come back together. For that," he took a long breath. "For that, I am truly and very grateful to you."

Eight grinned widely. "I did, did I? Well, that is good to hear. Having a family is a gift, a very important gift. I'm glad that I was able to help you all reunite." His words paused when Rose broke from her silent stance, and she warily approached him. His head tilted and his brows pinched to see the look of sorrow on her beautiful face.

"Oh my dear," he cooed gently when she approached. He lifted his hand to thumb away the wetness of her cheek. "I hope these are happy tears," he said gently.

She rolled up onto her toes and pressed a kiss against his cheek. She lingered just a little while, smiling at the way he lightly tilted toward her touch before she pulled away from him. "Thank you, Doctor."

He touched at his cheek as a blush rushed across his cheeks. With an embarrassed splutter he quickly stepped back. "Oh. Yes. Yes of course. You're very welcome." He backed up toward the TARDIS doors and clapped his hands before wringing them together. "Well I imagine that we've already passed on our goodbyes and farewells. Do take care of yourselves." He looked toward Ten. "And, John. Do take care in making sure that you don't find yourself separated from your lovely wife and child, again."

"I don't intend to,' he answered as he hooked his arm across Rose's back. "You take care of yourself, Doctor."

"I will. Of course I will. I always take care of myself." He thought about that with a wrinkle in his brow. "Well. I certainly try to at the very least. Can't always be helped, though, to end up inside a little mischief and mayhem from time to time." He petted his pockets and gave a slight bow. "Thank you again for the reminder of our time together, John. I'll be very sure to cherish this memento."

"I hope so."

The TARDIS whined for attention. Eight let out a moan and rolled his eyes. "Yes. Yes, dear. I'm coming." He tipped his fingers to his forehead and gave a lazy salute of goodbye. "Well, I must be off. Things to do, places to see. Mischief to avoid – if at all possible."

He continued to natter to himself as he disappeared inside the TARDIS. The door closed gently behind him, and in less that a couple of seconds, the light on the top began to flash and the old girl dematerialized from view.

Rose inhaled a deep breath and let the final sounds of the TARDIS engines drown out across the landscape before she looked toward the Doctor at her side.

"He truly _did_ forget about us, didn't he?"

The Doctor lightly nodded his head. There was no happiness in his eyes, or even relief for the pain spared to his Eighth self. He actually found himself questioning whether or not knowing that there was hope of happiness in his future would have been better than not knowing anything at all.

"If you knew about us," Rose offered as though reading his mind. "I mean when we met. Wouldn't it have made things different?"

"Very," he breathed quietly.

"And not in a good way, right?"

The shake of his head was almost imperceptible.

"We're here now," she offered him as she laid her head on his shoulder. "And we're not goin' anywhere."

He tightened his hold and dropped his head onto hers. His chin crinkled as he grinned a cheeky smile. "Well. I'm not entirely sure about the school system or real estate around here, but I can look into it if you're so keen on staying." He lifted his head and looked around, oblivious to the straight stare of disbelief she was giving him. "I think we can make it work, though. Plenty of space so that we don't have to live too close to your mother…"

She slumped, groaned, and then knocked him with her shoulder. She shook her head as she turned on her heel and headed toward the TARDIS. "You go ahead and look into that, then. And while you're at it, look at a way of heating this place up a bit. It's bloody freezing."

He watched her walk back to the TARDIS with wide eyes. "You know I was kidding, _right_ , Rose? I really have no desire at all to set up house here."

She turned to give him a wink and pushed open the door of the TARDIS with her backside. "I'm going to change our stinky little princess' diaper, then I'm putting her to bed. Don't be too far behind me, yeah? I'm tired, I might just fall asleep on you."

"Rose Marion Tyler," Jackie shrieked with disgust as she followed behind her. "There'll be none of that nonsense happening in this shag-box of his while your dad and I are onboard. You can just wait until your dad and me are settled somewhere this box isn't, yeah?" She turned to Pete with a roll in her eyes. "Best we get him to drop us off quick-smart. With his poor piloting skills, you just know he's gonna end up us stuck on Mars or somethin'."

The Doctor watched with wide eyes and a gaped mouth as his family disappeared into the TARDIS. His gaped mouth shifted into a wide grin as Donna stepped up beside him and knocked his shoulder with hers. "I don't think I've ever seen you smile like that."

"Like what?" he answered innocently. He tried to drop the smile, but it wouldn't fade.

"Like a kid who got everything he ever wanted for Christmas, all at once."

He stretched his arm across her shoulder and tugged her against him. He pressed a hard and chaste kiss against her hair. He growled out a happy sound, tightened his hold across her shoulder, and then released her with a laugh. "Donna Noble. I _am_ the kid who got everything he ever wanted, all at once!"

"I'm so glad to hear that," she answered him with legitimate happiness for her best friend. "If anyone deserves to be happy, Doctor. It's you."

"Oh don't tell the universe that," he warned playfully. "She'll take that as a challenge." He looked upward and grinned toward the sky. "But you know what?" He dropped his head and looked toward Donna with thrill. "I dare the universe to take that challenge. Because there's no way, no way at all, that I'm going to let it take away my family again."

She smiled a teary, yet happy smile. "I'm glad to hear that."

"And so am I," he breathed with obvious relief. He was quiet for only a short moment and then clapped his hands together. "Right. So where to now, Donna Noble? Shall we jet off to Cacury, where the rain falls from the clouds in a magnificent perpetual purple waterfall that rolls across the landscape like a wet freight train. Never in the same spot for longer than a second, but over the millennia it's been pouring, erosion from the waters have carved a one-metre-width lake right through the landscape. There's no water anywhere else on the planet, just along this one line right through its centre."

"Oh, I think-"

"Or how about, Reskoria Naephus? They have the most unique species." He tilted his head. "Well, not _unique_ in that no other planet has anything like it. Reskoria has an atmospheric composition very similar to Earth. Their sun is the same basic distance away, and has about the same chemical makeup as the one that lords over the Mutter's Spiral – Which is where Earth is, by the way."

Donna rolled her eyes and shook her head with a smile. There was no sense in trying to get a word in right now. He was happy. He was excited. He was going to ramble on a mile a minute and not stop to even take a breath.

"So Reskoria," he continued as he pressed his hand lightly against Donna's lower back to walk her toward the TARDIS. "Has life forms very similar to what you have on Earth. And while they are very similar in their shape and share the same basic physiological behaviours, they have very different colouring to what they have on Earth. Take their version of the Swan, for instance. Not like Earth Swans in that they just wallow around in rivers and ponds and generally fall victim to all sorts of pond lice and what-not. No. Their species is actually quite intelligent with a very intricate form of communication that has seen them rise up out of the food chain and actually take a leadership role on Reskorian society." He opened the TARDIS door and walked them both into the console room. "And get this. They're blue. A bright and brilliant shade of blue that has even the old girl herself wheezing in jealousy."

He suddenly let out a gasp of remembrance. "Rose!" He victoriously slammed his palms on the console, twisted, and then down along the main corridor toward the living quarters. "The Swan! I finally figured out what it actually was!"


End file.
